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Musings and comments on the world of Kosher wineMon, 19 Feb 2018 17:28:24 +0000enhourly1http://wordpress.com/https://secure.gravatar.com/blavatar/73f2acb04546b5def870ca61d2f4c52b?s=96&d=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.wp.com%2Fi%2Fbuttonw-com.pngWine Musings Bloghttps://kosherwinemusings.com
The good and the ugly state of kosher wine in South Africa and Chicagohttps://kosherwinemusings.com/2018/01/31/the-good-and-the-ugly-state-of-kosher-wine-in-south-africa-and-chicago/
https://kosherwinemusings.com/2018/01/31/the-good-and-the-ugly-state-of-kosher-wine-in-south-africa-and-chicago/#respondThu, 01 Feb 2018 06:16:52 +0000http://kosherwinemusings.com/?p=193475

Well, we are back home, thank God for that! I really enjoyed my time in South Africa (Cape Town, Johannesburg, and then Kruger), but while the Jews of South Africa are truly wonderful, the life there is less than so.

In the end, the trip was marred by things being stolen from our luggage and the overall sense of hope but desolation that seems to be a default in Johannesburg and in many of the shantytowns (AKA townships) that are scattered throughout South Africa.

The clear separation of the haves and have-nots was tough to see. Not because I am in ANY WAY blind to it here in our country, but more because it is as in your face as it is in places like India or China.

Aside from the wine at the wedding (the 2017 Backsberg Chardonnay and the NV Backsberg Sparkling wine), I can honestly say that the wines of South Africa are not fit for print! Throw on to that the selection they do have of kosher wines, outside of what is made in South Africa and well yeah, there was no real option for Shabbat – total failure!

I walked into three different places and the wine selection was horrible in all of them. Mostly a combination of ancient and poorly stored undrinkable Israeli wines and some newer South African wines that are really not fun at all.

State of Jews in South Africa

Although the Jewish community peaked in the 1970s (at around 120,000[1]), about 70,000 mostly nominally Orthodox, remain in South Africa. A proportion is secular, or have converted to Christianity. Despite low intermarriage rates (around 7%),[1] approximately 1,800 Jews emigrate every year, mainly to Israel, Australia, Canada and the United States. The Jewish community in South Africa is currently the largest in Africa, and, although shrinking due to emigration, it remains one of the most nominally Orthodox communities in the world, although there is a significantly growing Progressive community, especially in Cape Town. The current Orthodox Chief Rabbi, Warren Goldstein (2008), has been widely credited for initiating a “Bill of Responsibilities” which the government has incorporated in the national school curriculum. The Chief Rabbi has also pushed for community-run projects to combat crime in the country.

The community has become more observant and in Johannesburg, the largest center of Jewish life with 66,000 Jews, there is a high number and density of kosher restaurants and religious centers.

Johannesburg is tough, really tough to love. The city is crazy, it has such massive potential and yet such division with people living in fear and cages, really tough to watch. That said, that is all tempered by the wonderful attitudes and warmth of the Jews of South Africa. People heard we needed a lift to a supermarket and drove us. I walked into a Seattle’s Coffee shop and asked if the cake was kosher and a Jewish patron said no (wearing a kippah and all – so he would know), but then he asked what I wanted. I responded with either an omelet or some danish. He replied, let me drive you to my house, it is very close and I can make you an omelet! Excuse me! This man never saw me in his life! Never! Yet here was offering to make me breakfast! That is what I mean by the sheer joy and power of community that drives the Jews of South Africa.

But before you ignore the snippet I stole from Wikipedia, please read that again! 70,000+ Orthodox Jews live in South Africa! Are you kidding me! Now, remember, South Africa for the most part never saw Reform or other broken branches of our religion.For the most part, these Jews pray and eat at religious synagogues and restaurants! They are the lifeblood of the community, whether they are 100% religious or less so, the community is orthodox and acts in that manner!

I was at a restaurant in Cape Town – a great place called the Press, and the popup pizza place next door. Most of the patrons were not outwardly religious, but when I spoke with them and watched them for a bit, they were every bit as religious as I am. They washed, ate and prayed the after service for eating bread. No, I am in no way demeaning these wonderful people, just the opposite! South Africa is filled with 10s of thousands of Jews that have great food options, wonderful synagogues, and communities, but abysmal kosher wine options!

In the end, for me, it is always the same story. This story will repeat in a few paragraphs when I get to Chicago, but kosher wine options in anything other than NYC, is a disaster – and it must change!

The only option I would have bought from the Press’s wine list was the 2014 Chateau Bellerive Dubois, White (called Le Chene De Margot in South Africa), or the NV Backsberg Sparkling wine. The prices in South Africa are incredible, because of the dollar’s weight against the Rand. Dinner with wine or beer was like 40 to 50 bucks for two people. The food was wonderful. At Nussbaum’s in Johannesburg, you go in and pick your meat and then take it outside and they grill it for you there on the spot. The sheer number of restaurants there is incredible. Sadly, the wine options are not!

Either way, Cape Town, the wedding, and Kruger was wonderful, and nothing could spoil that for me. But for people who live there every day of their lives, they deserve better kosher wine options.

Chicago Shabbat

As I posted in my year in review – Chicago may be my old home, and a place I still love, but it is also a shell of its old self in regards to kosher wine options.

It was painful to walk into Hungarian kosher wine and see what has become of it. The wines have been sitting there for years, YEARS! The turnover is almost nil, with a horrible selection, and horrible wines left. Sure, there are a few good things here and there, but for the most part, it is NOT what kosherwine.com was in the old days!

Remember, that it all started there! Hungarian was the bedrock of kosher wine in America! kosherwine.com was the largest seller of kosher wine in the USA, in the aughts and then they were not. Then JWine bought them and they are again the largest seller of kosher wine in the USA, or second, who really knows.

Walking into that place was like walking into a wine cemetery, and while there were a few living options, the prices and selection were not very good. Even a year ago, the place was better than it was this past Shabbat. Really sad to see. Do not start with Jewel, that place is a disgrace! The prices are absurd, just disgusting.

Truly if you live in Chicago, buy your wine from kosherwine.com. They can ship there now and the shipping is free and no taxes. That is what I would do if I was going to be there again for Shabbat! It was depressing to see the options!

Again, I was in Chicago for my family and it was an AWESOME time! Hanging with my family is the best thing! AE, the bar mitzvah boy killed it! Hanging with my family and getting to see my friends for a few seconds, sorry – family comes first, made for a great Shabbat! So, I have been free of good wine for a few weeks now, I hope to rectify that this Shabbat.

2017 Backsberg Chardonnay – Score: 90 (Mevushal) (QPR if u live in South Africa)
The nose on this lovely wine is dry, and unoaked, with great green apple, dry pear, and lovely lychee, with passion fruit, gooseberry, and spice. The mouth on this medium bodied starts off slow, but with time, it opens to show a nice mouthfeel, with really fun acid, well balanced with citrus pith, nectarines, Orangina, lemon, and lime. The finish is long and mineral-driven, with slate, rock, nice citrus, orange and citrus pith lingering long.

NV Backsberg Brut: Score: 88 – 89 (mevushal) (QPR if u live in South Africa)
This is not a homerun bubbly, but it is also not a slouch. It is an MCC (méthode cap Classique), meaning it is made in the same painstaking manner that they use in Champagne to make sparkling wines.

The nose on this wine shows nice green apple, dried quince, and lovely tart fruit, with hints of toast and mineral. The mouth is bracing with its acidity, with nice baked apple pie, small to medium mousse, with a firm attack of focus and acidity. The finish is long and tart, with lovely slate, hints of citrus, and nice pith. Nice!

2016 Domaine de Boissan Gigondas, Bokobsa – Score: 84 (tasted when I returned home)
While the 2014 vintage was a really fun and yet simple wine, the 2016 vintage is a total disaster. Yes, the wine has nice notes and all, but overall the center stage of this wine is the horrible overripe nose and mouth that is borderline undrinkable. The saving grace is the lovely minerality, one of the main reasons I loved the 2014 vintage.

The nose is really pushed, over the top, with bubblegum notes, and purple notes that are almost lifesaver candies on steroids, followed by dark fruit, mineral, and spice. The mouth on this light to medium bodied wine is straight up vile, sorry, it is so pushed and so extreme in its blackcurrant and boysenberry notes that it is really not fun, though there is nice extraction, fun minerality, and almost lovely scraping minerality. The finish is long and fruity, totally unbalanced, and really not much else. Sad.

]]>https://kosherwinemusings.com/2018/01/31/the-good-and-the-ugly-state-of-kosher-wine-in-south-africa-and-chicago/feed/020180123_173506-EFFECTSwinemusingsKosher Food & Wine Experience 2018 (KFWE) – BUY TICKETS NOW!!!https://kosherwinemusings.com/2018/01/30/kosher-food-wine-experience-2018-kfwe-buy-tickets-now/
https://kosherwinemusings.com/2018/01/30/kosher-food-wine-experience-2018-kfwe-buy-tickets-now/#commentsTue, 30 Jan 2018 21:58:09 +0000http://kosherwinemusings.com/?p=193472In case you missed my last post – yeah that was almost three weeks ago, you would know how much I really appreciate wine education. The 2018 KFWE (Kosher Food & Wine Experience) from Royal Wine, is a great example of wine education.

Sadly, I missed the Tel Aviv KFWE (now an official part of the KFWE family), the Paris KFWE (not an official one) – which is happening as we speak in Paris, and the London one that will happen tomorrow night.

With that said, no one still comes close to KFWE. The experience is real and though the VIP tickets are already all sold out, the NYC and LA events are still not.

Please read here and here to get an idea of why I love the KFWE events. The NYC event last year showcased a new idea on the VIP session and sadly that is sold out now, but it shows that NYC is really trying to push the envelope along with the LA event.

The NYC event will have hundreds of wines from more than 64 wineries and tons of great food. But to me, it will all be about the incredible 2015 and 2016 French wines that you can honestly not taste anywhere else at one time! If you want to taste ALL the wines that I did in one sitting – then come to this event! There will even be more wines from France that I have not yet tasted, like the 2015 Chateau Fayat from Pierre Miodinick’s new wine group. Along with the Chateau Cantenac Brown, that I tasted in Miami last year. These are all the great French kosher wines of 2015 and 2016 and this is really the only place to taste them all!

Now, that is not to undermine the incredible Spanish wines from Elvi and Capcanes. Along with the Italian wines from Terra de Seta, and so much more! Of course, do NOT forget to taste through all of Herzog’s greats wines! Last year’s wine of the year is already sold out, but there is a new vintage I look forward to tasting soon.

Add in some nice wines from Israel and others from all around the world and you can see why this is a no-brainer and MUST SEE WINE TV for anyone who thinks they like wine!

Every year people scream last minute for tickets – please do not add your name to that list! Please get your tickets ASAP before they sell out!! Use my coupon!

Name: KFWE NYCWhen: February 5th, 2018Time: 6:30 PM – 9:30 PM EST (VIP is SOLD OUT)Where: Pier Sixty at Chelsea Piers, New York, NYLink to signup or for more information: http://thekfwe.com/ (choose New York – then buy ticket) – USE COUPON CODE raccah

]]>https://kosherwinemusings.com/2018/01/30/kosher-food-wine-experience-2018-kfwe-buy-tickets-now/feed/1KFWE 2018winemusings2017 kosher wine year in reviewhttps://kosherwinemusings.com/2018/01/04/2017-kosher-wine-year-in-review/
https://kosherwinemusings.com/2018/01/04/2017-kosher-wine-year-in-review/#commentsThu, 04 Jan 2018 16:11:23 +0000http://kosherwinemusings.com/?p=193430Well, it is another Gregorian year and though there have been many new things going on in the world of the kosher wine world, they are all small in comparison to the larger fact that not much has changed. I truly mean NOT A SINGLE thing I brought up in last year’s set of issues has changed – NOT ONE!!

In many ways, they are getting worse, and one of those issues where I was personally promised a fix from the man in charge – well let us just say that nothing changed yet – maybe there is still hope (think LA). But let us start at the beginning and get to my issues next. So here is what I thought about 2017, in terms of kosher wine overall.

First, let us do a quick recap of last years issues and the state of them, and then a few new things to think about as well!

Economics

We have too much wine out there for the official kosher wine buying populace. How do I know this? Because the amount of wine being dumped on the non-kosher market for a pittance in countries that no one visits is absurd! Wine is being dumped all over the place, and it is not going to get better anytime soon. Why? Because wineries are still popping up all over the place, and they are making really average wine at best!

Which brings me to the same issue, but in more detail. We have lots of horrible wine out there. Yes, I know I am a broken record, get over it. The kosher wine market in Israel and California needs to get better at making wines for a decent price. But I would be happy with just good wine – for a not decent price.

Again, besides the price, the overall quality of the wines are just not acceptable. The good news is we have lots of wine, but sadly the quality is not there. We need to raise the quality and then work on lowering the price.

State after 2017 of the Economics of kosher wine

Nothing has changed here. Israel is even worse than it was in 2016. At least at the beginning of 2017, we had some 2014 whites that were still ok. Now, they are all dead. The Matar, Tabor wines are all oak juice or flat as a pancake. The 2015 wines are a total and absolute disaster. There was ONE wine I would buy again from 2015 in Israel, and that is the 2015 Tzora Misty Hills, which was on my list of top 25 wines of 2017.

The issue though is that there are THOUSANDS of bottles and they are all undrinkable and horrible wines. I am not trying to be Politically Correct, why should I? I do not make wine (other than a few gallons of Pinot Noir to learn the process – hands-on style), I do not sell wine, I will never make money from wine – in any form or manner. I have no issue, desire, or need – THANK GOD!!!

What I do need is to make clear that the state of where we are is not healthy. We have far too much wine that no one wants. Go to stores, go online, there are hundreds of labels of wine from 2010, 2012, 2013. Old labels of old wines that no one wants. What are these poor stores to do? They have no choice! They have to buy the wines – why? because that is the game! The more you buy the stuff that does not move, the more access you get to the stuff that everyone really wants! You rub my back, I rub your back, AKA old mafia style. Nothing new, I am not spilling state secrets here. The issue is that whether we like it or not, stores are the lifeblood and they are being forced by importers and distributors to move stuff that no one wants.

If the wines stink, they sit on shelves, so when I want a new vintage of the hot new Rose, I cannot buy it! Why? Because the store still has previous vintages, what is he supposed to do – eat it? Why should he? I am not in the business, but this much I know – old labels of dead wine stuck on the internet and physical wine stores – IS BAD FOR BUSINESS! PLEASE fix this! Move the stock – kill the stock – I do not care!

Finally, remember that the wine business is a fickle mistress. It is a long-term game – one that needs to be managed and maintained. Names and reputations can be lost overnight when the buying public realize that what they have been enjoying for so many years is just not there anymore. Worse than that, is that all that wine, three or so years of it – the one being made, the one in the winery, and the one in the channel are all flipped on their head and now you have a real problem on your hand. That day is not here in any way. However, seeing where the public is slowly moving, that day is not as far as you would expect. The public is learning – white wine is MOVING! things are changing, and if wineries continue to build wines for the past – they will be left with a ton of inventory that no one wants. You heard it here first!

State after 2017 of the Quality of kosher wine

No change. I just released my 2017 QPR winners of the year! Sadly, that list has fewer and fewer Israeli wines on it! Why? Because quality is going down at a terrifying rate and prices are indeed going up for many wines in Israel. I guess if you cannot make good wine, raise the prices!

The French wines are not the answer for QPR, they are raising their prices as fast as the Chateaus can give them new higher cost invoices, which is yearly! So where does that leave us, get ready for fewer good wines and higher prices! Sure, there are a few good options, but they sell out quickly – the 2014 Herzog Cabernet Sauvignon Special Reserve, Alexander Valley is sold out in most locations. Keep buying the good stuff and leaving the bad stuff on the shelves, sooner or later the wineries and distributors will get the message!

Kosher wine consumer and their choice

As stated, there are thousands of kosher wines released every year into the market – and while we do not all get to taste all of them, the majority of them are not for polite company – to say it nicely. Still, when the consumer walks into the store – he/she continue to be inundated with these wines and the knowledge is not there for these wine buyers.

Nothing has changed in that fact since the passing of Daniel Rogov in 2011, and while many have tried no one can take his place, IMHO. In his stead – the wine shop owner now is in charge of helping or pushing his/her wines onto the consumer.

I have been having conversations with wineries more and more, and as they talk to me about their wines, along with how the wines are distributed (more on that below), they all come back around to the issue of education. Of course, they bring it up as a way to separate themselves from the crowd and to let their wines shine more – against a wall of competing wines. However, I find the idea a MUST-have for wineries going forward, educating the world about their wines, and allowing the consumer to see if they like their wines and why. Wineries need to go out and visit wine stores and wine events and talk about why their wines are unique, special, tasty, and different.

As the market grows, I think opportunities like the KFWE and Sommelier in Israel are must-see for wine consumers to gain a better appreciation for what they like, dislike, and can appreciate in the wines on the market today.

Israel and wines – whites and reds are getting worse

As much as I hate to sound like a broken record, nothing has changed in this area, for the most part. In many ways, it has gotten worse. Wineries in Israel are still caving into the LCD (Lowest Common Denominator), and are not taking cues from wineries like Tzora, or newcomers like Capsouto. There are even wineries moving further off the field to accommodate the ripe and over the top wine public.

What can I say, Israel was the clear worldwide leader when it comes to white wines and rose, in terms of sheer volume and quality. From 2008 to 2014 Israeli whites ruled the roost. Sadly, since then 2015 and 2016 were total failures! Except for a few wines, the vast majority were not fun at all.

2015 was a complete disaster – the number of wines I would buy from the 2015 vintage in Israel is ONE – ONE wine! Sadly, I am NOT optimistic about where Israel is going with their wines, but what can I do? I can try the wines and post the scores, and then you and I can vote with our pocketbooks.

Distributors

Well, what can say on this subject – the big keep getting bigger and the rest are not! Teperberg Winery (two year’s ago addition) and Vitkin Winery (last year’s edition), is now being imported by Royal Wines, the biggest kosher wine importer in the world, adding another large quality winery to their portfolio.

The real question though is – does anyone care who imports the wine? Does it matter? The other issue that comes up in terms of the kosher wine distributors – is do they sell the winery’s wines as well as the winery can? Do they facilitate an environment of good sales for the winery? Are distributors just a sales channel for the wineries, handling the logistics and such of getting the wines to the states? Is the rest is up to the wineries to sell their own wines here?

Where this does matter is, whose job is it to promote the wine? Is it the winery’s job to market the wines and do tastings and get the attention of the wine shops and consumers, or is it the distributor’s job? Again, I am constantly wondering why it is so hard to find Netofa wines and Elvi wines at most wine shops in the midwest or west coast – THERE IS NADA! Save for the Cask in Los Angeles, there is little here in terms of those two wineries and others. I can buy as much Barkan as I would want if I wanted to.

There has been a lot of chatter on the web about Netofa Winery and how it is being distributed here in the USA. All of it, for now, is chatter, but the sad truth is the entire 2016 vintage for Netofa is still in Israel.

In regards to Elvi Wines, things are indeed improving. Finally, we have access to most of Elvi’s wines and they are available on the east coast – however, they continue to not be available in Chicago and Illinois.

Royal does hold its annual KFWE – which is really the only distributor driven wine event in the kosher industry. They do this for the very reason I am stating – which is to have a place where consumers can come and educate themselves on what they like and do not like. In the end, there is a need for more education and marketing and whether that is the job of the winery or the distributor – it needs to be done and done better than it is being done today.

However, and this cannot be understated enough, Royal now commands maybe 85 to 90% of all the wine I buy. That is a terrifyingly large number of wines. Why is that scary? Simple, take Netofa or Elvi Wines if I am in Chicago and I want them, and Royal does not want to sell them there, I have little recourse. Why? Because internet companies cannot ship wines to Chicago! Illinois decided it would be better to force me to buy wines from the stores in Illinois! Great! But if the distributor does not want to sell the wines in that region I am out of luck! When a single entity owns that much power, it is scary.

No, Royal is not doing anything bad or illegal or the sort, it is just a business that is trying to maximize its channel and it does not see Chicago as a place where some wines sell. Great! So, now I need to ship wines to Chicago to enjoy a weekend or two and such is life.

The more scary concept is which wines does Royal push harder? Also, which wines are being forced on retailers to get other wines? That is stuff that happens with many distributors and wine shops around the country and especially in Israel (in both directions), and I have no idea if Royal is doing this at all. What I do know is that a winery that sells wine through any distributor better be 100% ON TOP of what is selling where. Because as much as Royal is an honorable company from what I know and can see, business is business, and if a winery is not watching out for themselves and pushing their wines within the top regions of the USA, then it may fall behind other wineries that Royal is moving. If that happens, well some shelves have a higher value than others, and in the end, the store shelf is where wine sells.

In the end, I have NO issues with what Royal is doing, and so far I have seen no real issue at all. The only aspect that annoys me is the lack of access to certain wines in the Chicagoland area, but that is something I can work around.

EDIT: Kosherwine.com has the ability to ship to Chicago! So, order away.

West Coast and Midwest

So, according to the Pew Poll, roughly 79% of all Orthodox Jews live in NYC/NJ and its surrounds. The rest are distributed lightly between the South (9%), the Midwest (7%), and west (5%)! So, it is no surprise that when you are looking for good kosher wine – you buy it from stores on the east coast (like the list of online stores to the right and others).

Still, there are many thousands of religious Jews on the west coast and where do they buy their wines? The Cask? Glatt Mart? Western Kosher? Really – that is it?? Come on guys – where do all the wine drinkers in LA buy their wines? Trader Joe’s? I do not know as I do not live there, but from what I hear the pickings are slim outside of the Cask, Glatt Mart, and Western. Three wine stores for all those Jews? What about the rest of the religious Jews scattered west of the Mississippi? Kosherwine.com used to be the man – but that is really just JWines now, and is a large east coast player. To be fair they are one of the few online kosher wine retailers that have free shipping for cases of wines, and while their wines cost far more than east coast players, if you add in the free shipping to California, they are in the game. Which is why they are still on the right side – for my list of wine shops.

So, who is to blame on this? Is it the lack of kosher wine consumers? Is it the lack of kosher wine purveyors that should be promoting wines and educating the public? Herzog Winery is not to blame – that is for sure! They have a calendar of wine and foodie events that would make me think of moving to Southern California just to be closer to the food and wine mecca that is Herzog Wine Cellars. They also host the KFWE west coast’s version, so Herzog/Royal is doing their best – even if it is for their wines, to educate the kosher public about great wines that are available.

I do not know. Wineries ask me this question every time I visit them. They want to know why the consumers in Cali are not buying their wines more? I always ask back – before you start asking about the consumer – what about wine availability? There is little to almost no availability for great wine on the west coast – there just is not! Now, to be fair, Southern Wine says they can get about any wine that Royal imports, but not so much for the other kosher wine importers.

So, before we start beating on West Coast consumers and their lack of wine consumption, I think we need to first address the chicken and egg problem here that feels more like a three-way stop gone bad than a consumer failure. First, we need to address the lack of availability, then we need to address the lack of wine shops and their purchasing or lack thereof, and then we can also in parallel address the kosher wine consumer.

I say this in all seriousness because as a kosher wine consumer on the west coast it annoys me to no end that I need to pay absurd shipping rates and the such, for wines that should be available here – for reasonable prices on the west coast.

Clearly Southern is too big to care about any kosher wine importer other than Royal, so what the West Coast needs is a small-scale kosher wine distributor – to handle the rest of the kosher wine importer’s west coast affairs! Anyone out there wants to take up the challenge?? Dan Kirshe – do you want to get back into the game??

State of West Coast and Midwest Distributor – post-2017

I was promised some hope here and in the end, there was very little. Glatt Mart is still devoid of much wine that I would buy. There is lots of Herzog wine, which is understandable and obvious. There is a bit of Hagafen and Covenant, and then not much else. There are smatterings of wines from Victor, and a few French wines from Royal, but if I lived there and wanted to buy the wines I buy – I would fail!

So, for the past year, I have been buying from kosherwine.com – and that has been working firn for me. They have most of the wines I want and so once again, I will ignore California and buy online.

The French Wine issue

The amount of French wine coming our way from 2014, 2015, and 2016 vintages is insane. I am not even talking about a single distributor here, I am talking across all of them, there is too much French wine being made for the kosher wine buying populace.

I already spoke about this issue here and here, and not much fallout is visible yet, so far so good. Time will tell.

Mevushal Wine

Well, in terms of mevushal wine – the kosher wine world has not gotten any better. Royal has been pushing hard to get good mevushal wines for affairs and restaurants here in the USA. Why? Because the OU and the rest of the Hareidi supervision entities demand it. In Israel, France, and the rest of the civilized kosher world – this is not an issue at all. But in the USA – we need to be more religious than them, be more AMERICAN and show we are bigger and more frum! The cost for that is that we all need to suffer a bit, and honestly, when I go to a restaurant I just get a beer. The restaurants lose out and so do we all.

There have been a few good mevushal wines, like the QPR wine of the year, the 2016 Chateau Des Riganes. Also, the lovely 2016 Les Marronniers Chablis, and the lovely Herzog Special reserve wines. Along with the Montroc and others.

Still, WHY?? Why are we forced to drink mevushal wines? Why must we be the ONLY country in the world to be forced to drink mevushal wines? WHY? Israel, France, Spain, Southern America, and Australia all allow the use of non-mevushal wines in restaurants! Only Canada and USA force this issue. Why must we be “special”??

Enough is enough, restaurants must take a stand against the kosher supervision organizations. We MUST demand as customers that option to drink wines we desire and not wines we are forced to consume. It is UP TO US! Ask more and more, demand it more often. It will not change until we try. Change is up to us – we must bring it about.

Once again there were very few unique and special white or rose wines this past year. Israel was a huge dud – two years in a row. The 2015 and 2016 vintages from Israel, have been an absolute mess in regards to red, rose, or white wines. There are some ok wines, even some A- wines, but they are not unique or special enough for me to buy them. Even if I wanted to buy them just look at the prices! Are you kidding me! Some Cabernet and Syrah from Israel that I would rather throw down the garbage hole go for 100 dollars a bottle. Sure, those are the outliers. But the prices are going up fast and the wines are not worth anything like the prices!

I could not think of a SINGLE dry white wine from Israel that I would put on my top wines of the year! The Old Musketeer by Yaacov Oryah is lovely, but that wine is crazy expensive, and for good reason – he has been floating that cost (and losing lots of it to the air) for 8 years now. The 2016 Netofa Tel Qaser white is also lovely and very unique, but it too is very expensive and not that level of top wines, but a very lovely wine that was worthy of my interesting wine list.

So, where does that leave us? Another year without good rose or whites. That goes for Israel, Spain, Europe (though I liked the 2016 Les Marronniers Chablis), or the USA, again though Iiked a few there too. Overall, it was a very weak year indeed for whites and roses.

Cabernet continues to be king

Well, another year and nothing has changed. The number one selling wine varietal in the kosher wine world – is the king of wine – Cabernet Sauvignon. Really? There is ZERO originality here. People will buy the wine as long as it has a high price and a good kosher supervision! The product or quality is not important. How do I know? I stood at KFWE last year and watched people ignore Elvi and Capcanes and enjoy UNDRINKABLE and UNSPEAKABLE wines – because they were Cabernet Sauvignon!

They would come by the table and ask – what is the most expensive Cabernet you have? Not what is good? Not what is special? Just the highest priced Cabernet Sauvignon!

Now, who is to blame here? The NYC kosher wine drinker and every drug dealing distributor that pushes these wines! A cab here or there is one thing – but Herzog itself sells maybe 18 or 20 Cabernet Sauvignon by itself!

Same goes for many large wineries, the number of Cabernet is absurd and non-proportional to what is good for the trade. In the end, wineries make what sells, and as I stated before, and especially for red wines like Cabernet if the public changes its mind – that is a lot of cabs to sell!

Fads work great until they do not! Bell bottom jeans, pet rocks, come on we were stupid enough to buy ROCKS and drag them around! This too will change and it will be painful for the one holding all those wines.

Trader Joe’s pulls Terrenal wines for some horrible Barkan mess

So, another year and another QPR wine pulled from the shelves. I spoke about the fact that Trader Joe’s pulled the Terrenal wines from their shelves. The wines that replaced the Terrenal wines are a slap in the face of the kosher consumer. I have tried them a few times now and they are disgusting. I honestly have no other way to say it. I would score the Givon Chardonnay an 82 and the Givon Cabernet in the high 70s.

Why are these better the Terrenal wines? I have no idea, but Barkan wines sell well to people who have no palate, so I guess that works for them!

Barkan is the kosher wine world’s Meiomi

Tell me if you have heard of this story? Some dude decides he can make a wine for the average American wine drinker. He will call it, Meiomi, and make a Pinot Noir, the wine that was most affected positively by the Sideways movie.

Now, what kind of wine is it – an average, sweet, boring wine that Wine Spectator tries to sound positive about as it spins the fact that in 2015 they sold 700,000 cases of this wine alone!

I have never tasted it, but from the wine notes I read – it is an American-ized Pinot Noir that is roughly 97 percent Pinot Noir, with small amounts of other grapes, including Riesling, Gewürztraminer, Chardonnay, and Grenache.

If there was a single wine in the kosher wine world that could compare – it is the Barkan Cabernet Sauvignon Classic. It is an undrinkable, sweet wine that is perfect for the USA palate that just wants to drink. It is easy drinking because it has no substance, all it has average ripe fruit, and lots of people who drink it. It is mevushal so it is poured down the gullets of millions of Jews around the world (well maybe the Barkan Classic line as a whole) at restaurants and weddings – when all these people want is some alcohol and it serves that purpose.

You would think my answer would have been the Bartenura Blue Bottle Moscato (BBB), but actually, that is an alcoholic soda pop – that is indeed still doing well. But no, this wine is a “dry” red wine for the REAL wine drinkers amongst us. This wine is for that guy and woman at the table that thinks they know what wine is. The one that when asked what wine they like – their response – red wine! For that person, this is the kosher wine option of choice. They may not always drink wine – but when they do – it must be a Barkan Classic!

Good enough versus wines I would buy

My wine scores are defined here and while some think wine scores are useless – I cannot agree. To me, there are so many wines out there that even if I score them an 89 or even a 90, they would not be wines I would buy!

Again, that is clear as day in my scoring. So, when I say, man, this sucks, there are truly few wineries in Israel from whom I would buy their wines, that does not mean the wines are bad. It means that they are not special, they are not something I need or want. They are OK wines – they are just not really interesting or unique wines.

More and more, wines of Israel are just that – boring, uniform, all the same, searing and burning tannin, oak juice that makes me want to spit out splinters, and fruit so over the top that nothing could survive tasting it.

Nothing elegant, nothing desirable, nothing special – just a copycat or the winery next door, just with another month of oak so that they can say they left the wine in oak longer!

Sure, this may sound like my previous statement of how badly Israel is making kosher wines, but I wanted to stress that while some may actually be making OK wines – they are just that! OK! That is not what I buy and it is not what I hope most wineries aspire to. How long can a country continue to make oak and date juice and think it will work? I guess time will tell!

Special wine clubs are selling exclusivity at what cost?

Just look at any kosher winery, website online, or macher, and you will find another guy/entity selling you a wine or experience that is exclusive to them! I have written up about the kosher wine clubs that abound here in California, and while a winery has every right to sell whatever they want to whomever they want (within reason of the stupid state post-prohibition laws) – it does start to feel like a secondary wine market.

Now is there anything really wrong with a secondary market? Many startups today are not going public and why should they? They have access to all the cash they need from the private and secondary markets without all the red tape and regulatory headaches of a public company.

Same goes for these private label wines and experiences. The wines are already sold – before they are made, that is the whole point of the secondary market. You buy into the exclusive access and for that cost, you get wines that are meant to be special, different, and unique.

All of that sounds great and it is not the boring same old that the public market is pushing, with the added benny of it being cool to be one of the in-crowd folks. Right?

So what could be wrong with this? Well, to start lots of these wines have not been put through the rigor of the public market, whether that means public access to the wines and people’s comments and reactions to them, much like a public company. Also, since you have paid into the game, you have very little recourse, other than to attempt to leave the game when the stuff you are sold is – well not special!

All of those concerns are an issue for the consumer to think about and really has very little to do with me or anyone else who decides to stay in the public markets. Still, do these exclusive wines and access affect the public markets in any way? Are we being affected negatively by the existence of these private, secondary markets?

Honestly, the issues that govern and affect the unicorns and their absurd valuations in the private tech markets really have a very small effect on the public kosher wine market. If people do jack up the pricing on these private labels or clubs, they are not going to attempt to go public and leave their investors holding the bag – as would be the case in the private unicorn world of tech startups. If they did, all that means is the exclusivity comes to bite the people who bought it.

So, while the private and exclusive clubs abound in the kosher wine world, they are not making the kosher wine market better or worse, from what I can tell they exist. There have been a few nice wines that have come out of it all, but for now, it is just another kosher wine option.

Conclusion

So where are we after another year in the world of kosher wine? The answer, as I led off this post, not much has changed. The hope was that we get better wines overall, whether in the private or public markets and sadly – for the most part, that has NOT been the case.

In the past at least we had solid white wines, but again, that too has failed us. What we truly should feel blessed for, is the bounty of 2014, 2015, and 2016 kosher French, Spanish, Californian, and Italian wines that are making our lives better.

I know I am asking for too much, for good, balanced, and enjoyable wines. Still, wineries have proven it is possible, now it is up to other wineries in the kosher world to learn and adapt and improve.

Truly the red wines of Europe and some from California were the bedrock of 2017 and they will continue for the next two years at least – given the quality of French wines that are still coming to the shores over that time frame.

My hope for next year is that we get more great wines for under 10 to 20 dollars – RETAIL! Bravo to the QPR winners of 2017 – I just wish the list was longer. Next, we need to get kosher wines to the west coast – in larger quantities. I also hope we find a way to work out the Shmita issues for 2022. Enough is enough – we have another 5 solid years to finally get the Hareidi community behind a real shmita option. And if I am asking for too much – can we fix this stupid mevushal problem already? Either remove the need or improve the options – because what we have now is useless at best.

]]>https://kosherwinemusings.com/2018/01/04/2017-kosher-wine-year-in-review/feed/14design-2711676_1920winemusingsMy top 25 kosher wines of 2017 including wine of the year and best wine of the year awardshttps://kosherwinemusings.com/2018/01/03/my-top-25-kosher-wines-of-2017-including-wine-of-the-year-and-best-wine-of-the-year-awards/
https://kosherwinemusings.com/2018/01/03/my-top-25-kosher-wines-of-2017-including-wine-of-the-year-and-best-wine-of-the-year-awards/#commentsWed, 03 Jan 2018 16:09:03 +0000http://kosherwinemusings.com/?p=193420I wanted to make this post short and sweet – so the criteria are simple I could care less about price, color, or where it was made. All that matters is that it is/was available this year sometime to the public at large and that I tasted it in a reliable environment, not just at a tasting, and that it was scored an A- to A or higher. Also, there are a few lower scoring wines here because of their uniqueness or really good QPR. I also included some of the best wines I tasted this year – they are at the bottom.

This year I am adding the “wine of the year”, and “best wine of the year”. Wine of the year will go to a wine that distinguished itself in ways that are beyond the normal. It needs to be a wine that is easily available, incredible in style and flavor, and it needs to be reasonable in price. It may be the QPR wine of the year or sometimes it will be a wine that so distinguished itself for other reasons. This year, it is not the QPR King of 2017, that went to the 2016 Chateau Des Riganes. No, this year “the wine of the year” is indeed a QPR superstar, but not the king, it is the 2014 Herzog Cabernet Sauvignon, Special Reserve, Alexander Valley. The best wine of the year, well that was easy, it is the 2015 Chateau Leoville Poyferre. So, yes, that means that the top wines of the year are both made by Royal wines, such is life, and I could care less for the most part.

Again, the list is missing wines I have yet to taste, like the 2015 Chateau Pape Clement, which I am sure would have been on this list if I had tasted it, or the 2015 Hajdu Proprietary Red. There are also interesting wines below the wines of the year, think of them as runner-up wines of the year. There will be no rose wines on the list this year – blame that on the poor crop or rose wines overall, they did not even crack the interesting list. Also, this year, we were given a bounty of top wines and finding the list this year was really a task of removing then adding.

The supreme bounty comes from the fact that Royal released the 2014 and 2015 French Grand Vin wines within the same year! The 2014 vintage wines were released in 2017 and the 2015 wines were released (in France in 2017 as well)! Throw in the incredible number of kosher European wines that are coming to the USA and being sold in Europe and this was truly a year of bounty for European kosher wines.

Now, separately, I love red wines, but white wines – done correctly, are a whole other story! Sadly, in regards to whites all we had this year that were exceptional, were epic Rieslings from Germany (Von Hovel) and the fantastic sweet wines from Sauterne and Yaacov Oryah. But dry white wines from elsewhere in the world was sadly lacking. There were a few exceptions, and they were all Chardonnays, but to me, the winner in that story (dry white wine that was not a German Riesling), was the 2015 Herzog Chardonnay, Reserve, Russian River. It does not rate in the wine of the year list, but it is in the interesting wines below. The new Chablis is also nice, as is the Shirah Whites.

Some of these wines are available in the USA, some only in Europe, and a few only available in Israel.

The 2017 kosher wine of the year!

This one was a no-brainer to me. The 2014 Herzog Cabernet Sauvignon, Special Reserve, Alexander Valley is a crazily affordable wine that got rave reviews from me and from the press. Congratulations to Herzog Winery and Royal Wines.

2014 Herzog Cabernet Sauvignon, Special Reserve, Alexander Valley – Score: 92 to 93 (QPR Superstar)
Lovely nose, impressive elegant and old world nose, peaking with a blackcurrant showing blackberry and lovely smoke and tar. The mouth is old world, wow, give me a break, in ways the wine is crazy better than the Warneke (Special Edition), but with years the Warneke will pass it. The mouth on this medium body, is great layered and rich, green, spicy, and rich with concentration, with sweet oak and sweet dill galore, with green notes, loads of foliage, showing dried strawberry, ripe raspberry, black forest berry, all wrapped in mouth coating and drying tannin, with earth and spice. The finish is long, and richly green, with nice spicy notes, leather and scraping mineral, showing bright and ripe fruit that is impressive, elegant, rich, and layered, with licorice, graphite, and forest floor that lingers long. Bravo!! Drink from 2020 till 2030.

The 2017 best kosher wine of the year!

This one was really tough. First of all, the one I chose is not available yet for purchase in the USA. Also, in terms of score, it did not beat out the Von Hovel Rieslings of 2014 or the 2014 Tour Blanche Sauternes, or the 2015 Chateau Giscours, or the 2014 Chateau Smith Haute Lafite. In the end – for its sheer awesomeness it beat out a very crowded field. In the end, the winner of the BEST kosher wine of 2017 goes to the 2015 Chateau Leoville Poyferre, and it deserves the crown – bravo!!

2015 Chateau Leoville Poyferre – Score: 95
This wine was very close to what we tasted from the barrel. The nose on this wine is rich and black, with floral hints, smoke, mineral, and really pushed for now, but incredible and redolent with a perfume of ripe fruit, chocolate, and green notes. The mouth is rich and layered with an incredible finesse of perfection, richly extracted and incredible with rich mineral and saline that is so perfectly hedonistic it is impressive, with chocolate heaven, showing earth, loam, finesse, and elegance beyond explanation, showing soft yet focused with a tight-mouthfeel, with rich raspberry, blackberry, ripe plum, all focused and concentrated with perfection. The finish is long and rich and paired with an acid and mineral that is never-ending, almost ripe and tart at the same time, with draping tannin, graphite, and charcoal with expressive and focus. Drink from 2022 to 2040.

Rest of the top 25 kosher wines of 2017

2015 Chateau Grand Puy Ducasse – Score: 94
This wine was very close to what we tasted from the barrel. What a nose, this wine is mostly Cabernet Sauvignon and a drop of merlot. This nose is green and red and really mineral focused with dark but red fruit focused, showing lovely elegance, dirt, and herb. The mouth is medium bodied with rich extraction, rich currant, red fruit, with dirt in the background, wrapped in rich and searcing tannin mouthfeel, with roasted herb, and rich tobacco that is backed by elegance and control, blackberry, plum, that gives way to dark chocolate epic control, foliage, and oregano that lingers long with graphite, pencil shavings, and rich leather. Drink from 2024 to 2034

2015 Chateau Giscours – Score: 95
This wine was very close to what we tasted from the barrel. The nose on this lovely wine is super dry, with more of a classic Bordeaux nose, less ripe than some of the previous wines, with the ever classic blueberry notes of Giscours, with black and red fruit galore backed by roasted herb, rich mineral, and lovely saline. The mouth is rich, incredible, massive, full-bodied and incredibly extracted with rich saline, with layers of unstoppable concentrated fruit, with blackberry, raspberry, with blueberry, rich spice, mushroom, and herb. The finish is never ending with green notes, roasted herb, incredible drying tannin, with a deep fruit base followed by the mineral, black fruit, earth, graphite, and rich spice, cloves, and dark chocolate. BRAVO! Drink from 2023 to 2035

2015 Chateau Lascombes – Score: 94.WOW, how this wine changed from when we tasted it in the barrel. This wine is a blend of 50% Cabernet Sauvignon, 46% Merlot, and 3 to 4% Petit Verdot. It is the flagship wine of Chateau Lascombes. The nose on this wine is even crazier than the Chevalier, showing more umami and soy sauce if that is possible, with incredible finesse, showing massive power, but great mineral and concentration, with black and red fruit, foliage galore with tar and roasted animal. The mouth is full bodied and incredible with the same style as the Chevalier, but with more finesse, mouth coating soft tannin that is extracted with blue fruit, earth, rich concentration, with more saline and power, yet showing incredible precision that is coating and impressive. The finish is long and lovely, with saline, mineral, tobacco, refined dark chocolate, and rich mushroom. Incredible! Drink from 2022 to 2032.

NV Four Gates Cabernet Franc – Score: 93
This is a blend of 2014 and 2015 vintages. This wine is a classic Benyo special, what a wine, this is crazy fun, what a rich floral, raspberry nose, with violets, rich tart fruit, with cherry, chocolate, mushroom, and foliage galore. The mouth on this full-bodied wine is really fun, rich, layered, with a real mouthfeel that gives way to mushroom, rich tilled earth, with red fruit, plum, raspberry, vanilla, and lovely focus, that gives way to great acid and sweet forest floor. The finish is long and green, with bell pepper, foliage, with vanilla, leather, and heather. Bravo!!! Drink 2020 to 2027

2013 Four Gates Merlot, La Rochelle – Score: 94
The nose on this wine is plum heaven, with crazy truffle, mushroom, and rich tart raspberry, followed by black fruit, and rich dirt. The mouth on this full bodied wine is crazy, rich, layered, with layer after layer of concentrated fruit, nice extraction, and intense acidic, with tannin galore, perfectly balanced, with sweet red raspberry, plum, sweet currant, black forest berry, and dark cherry. The finish is long and green, with foliage, mushroom, vanilla, sweet oak, spice, with menthol, mineral, graphite, sweet red fruit, and acid plays well together. Bravo!! Drink from 2020 to 2030.

2013 Four Gates Cabernet Sauvignon, Monte Bello Ridge, Betchart Vineyard – Score: 94
Lovely nose of earth, dirt, green notes, caraway seeds, coffee grinds, with black fruit hiding behind good bright notes, and mineral. The mouth on this full bodied wine, is rich and layered, showing lovely extraction, rich blackberry, blackcurrant, with impressive fruit structure, showing elegance and attack, with great focus and spice, spicy oak wrapped in earth and mouth coating and expressive tannin, with so much tar that it feels like road work in the mouth, and green notes galore. The finish is long and green with focus and power, showing dark chocolate, foliage, with scraping mineral, graphite, and mounds of earth lingering long. BRAVO! Drink from 2021 to 2031.

2013 Four Gates Frere Robaire – Score: 94
Another stunning wine, come on, this wine will and always reminds me of Chateau Malartic, and depending on how long you age it, the Malartic vintage compares well. The nose on this wine is lovely, as it opens, it is ripe to start with loads of fruit, mounds of finesse, and sweet oak, with rich mineral, herb, black fruit, with a bit of red in the background, and lovely graphite, and spice. The mouth on this full bodied wine is ripe and opens slowly with rich layers upon layers of sweet fruit, followed by earth, tilled loam, with green notes galore, sweet blackberry, plum, with concentration and rich extraction that gives way to layers of mouth coating tannin, vanilla, and spice. The finish is long and earthy, with foliage, green notes, anise, earth, leather, rich sweet milk chocolate, mushroom, and loads of forest floor. Drink from 2021 to 2030.

2014 Chateau Smith Haut Lafite, Pessac – Leognan – Score: 95
This is incredible, insane, far too young to imagine, and a wine that makes me want to just smell it all day, it is a truly perfumed and richly complicated nose, with incredible smoke, richly roasted animal, pure hedonism, and rich black and blue fruit that linger far in the background. The mouth on this full bodied is truly closed, sadly a wine that we have killed for the sake of knowledge, the tannins are beautiful, truly soft and caressing that is based on rich minerality, graphite, espresso, with blackberry, rich dark cherry, raspberry, that is caressing while also being richly tannic, giving way to soft and sweet garrigue, rich graphite, leather, and incredible refinement. The finish is long and green, with rich tannin, lovely tobacco, leather that is soft and saddle, and an extraction that is so incredible as you do not even realize that the extraction is slowly coming expressing itself more and more, in pure elegance, with green notes, foliage, and pure perfection coming through slowly. Bravo!!!!! Drink from 2024 till 2034.

2014 Chateau La Tour Blanche Sauternes, 1er Cru classé – Score: 95
This is the fourth 1er classé that has been made kosher. This is a clearly sweet wine with lovely balance though, showing sweet leanings but balanced well with mineral, bright fruit, showing bright dry fruit, lovely funk, showing fresh fruit notes, with honeysuckle, orange blossom, followed by sweet orange marmalade, with incredible sweet notes and fruit focus. The mouth on this full bodied and richly expressive sweet wine is incredibly focused and balanced and sweet, with ripping acidity, that is also balanced with lovely hints graphite with incredible expression, concentration, and impossible complexity that is truly impressive, a wine that never stops with rich grapefruit and citrus in the far background with sweet honeyed notes, candied lemongrass, and rich mineral and slate. The finish is incredible and never ends with honey, spice, nutmeg, and sweet stone fruit. Bravo!!! Drink till 2035

2014 Von Hovel Riesling, Hutte Oberemmel, Kabinett – Score: 94
The Scharzhofberg vineyard may be world-famous, but the Hutte Oberemmel is no slouch, it too has wide sweeping temperatures between day and night, and it is a monopoly (owned solely by) of the estate.Interestingly, the label reads Mosel, but it is really the Saar subregion of Mosel. Kabinett originally meant reserve wine, now it means light, fruity, that by law (if you use the word Kabinett) does not have chaptalization. The wine must also have a must density of between 67 to 82 degrees Oechsle, (148–188 g/L sugar). Kabinett wines range in style from dry to off-dry.
A wonderful Riesling wine, great funk, with rich petrol, honeysuckle monster, with great spice, dried flowers, heather, lavender, with yellow apple, and yellow plum. The mouth is rich and layered and rich acidity that is insane, with layers of rich blossom honey, and layers of never-ending oily texture that is dripping with acid and white peach, dried pineapple, lovely funk that gives way to minerality, wonderful control with nice oxidation, and intense lovely saline. The finish is crazy long, sweet, and yet incredibly balanced, with the sweet notes but impeccably balanced, with dripping honey, candied guava, minerality that is bracing, slate, rock, and incredible tart citrus, grapefruit, and tart lime. Bravo!!! Drink from now till 2028. (available only in France – wish it was here)

2014 Von Hovel Riesling, Scharzhofberg, Kabinett – Score: 95
Scharzhofberg needs little introduction. It’s one of the most famous vineyards in the Saar with incredibly steep slopes of slate, and a microclimate that has one of the largest diurnal temperature swings in all of Germany. Interestingly, the label reads Mosel, but it is really the Saar subregion of Mosel. Kabinett originally meant reserve wine, now it means light, fruity, that by law (if you use the word Kabinett) does not have chaptalization. The wine must also have a must density of between 67 to 82 degrees Oechsle, (148–188 g/L sugar). Kabinett wines range in style from dry to off-dry.
The wine starts off with lovely notes of tropical fruit, petrol heaven with a light hand, showing incredible elegance and style, slightly oxidized with incredible rich pineapple, hints of mango, and sweet notes. The mouthfeel is incredible with rich layers of rich sweet fruit, showing a guava infused oily texture that is wrapped in rich acidity and perfectly balanced with rich spices and incredibly sweet notes of peach, sweet apricot, with acid that gives way to rich candied grapefruit, candied lemon drop, candied green apple and rich mineral and saline. The finish is long and super spicy with rich mineral, slate, incredible candied fruit that is rich and never-ending with sweet honeyed notes, and sweet spices. AWESOME!! Drink from 2020 till 2035. (available only in France – wish it was here)

2015 Tzora Misty Hills – Score: A- to A (shmita wine)
This wine is a blend of 90% Cabernet Sauvignon and 10% Syrah. The wine’s name is a tribute to the morning mists that often lie upon our vineyards. These mists form as warm air from the Mediterranean collides with cool air descending from the mountains. This wine is aged 24 months in French barrels and it is not the oak that impresses you, it is the elegance and makeup of the wine that makes you take notice.
The wine is now in the bottle and it still tastes like no other Misty we have ever tasted, even than the 2011 Misty. The grapes for this wine were pulled a bit earlier than Mr. Pick dreamed, but given the choice of rain and dust or cleaner grapes, he chose to pull them when he did. The wine is leaner and drier than anything he has ever made and will be a fascinating experiment for the oenophiles out there that crave his wines. Will they like this style of wine more than the rich, draping, and yet fully controlled 2014 Misty? Only time will tell! This wine tastes like a 2012 Saint Emilion still, 2012 was a riper and more accessible vintage in France and this wine is almost accessible now as well.

The nose on this wine is incredibly old-world, with impressive notes of cherry and earth, with red fruit, lavender and lovely roasted animal, licorice, with herb galore, and mineral. This medium-bodied wine really shows like a merlot, and nothing like a 75% Cabernet wine, showing with crazy earth, elegant and yet rich, not showing ripe still at this time, actually the fruit is tart and expressive with currant, dry raspberry, all wrapped in an impressive and lovely mouth draping tannin, true elegance, with an expression that says Bordeaux with class, followed by forest floor, rich saline, mineral, and mushroom. The finish is long and green finish, with foliage, truffles, tobacco, menthol, mint, and dirt. BRAVO!!! Drink from 2018 to 2024. (available only in Israel – I think)

2015 Domaine Chantal Lescure Pommard – Score: 93
Wow, what a wine! This wine starts off showing very red berry fruit, with insane mineral, rich charcoal, smoke, roasted meat, and lovely dirt. With more time the nose turns blue and red, showing more like a Syrah than a Pinot Noir, with intense smoke and animal, in the end, the wine moves back to its red fruit, but slightly darker in nature, with more mineral and dirt, and less of the smoked animal. Tons of fun. The mouth on this medium bodied wine follows the nose and turns from red to blue and then to darker red, with rich loam, always in full control, with incredible mouth coating tannin, that gives way to scraping mineral, with menthol, red currant, all balanced with lovely acidity and incredible elegance. The finish is long and super balanced showing epic control, lovely spices, with green notes, foliage, and lovely Italian herbs. Bravo!!!! Drink by 2028. (available in France)

NV Yaacov Oryah Old musketeer – Score: 94 (Shmita wine)
This is a maybe the most unique dessert wine I have ever enjoyed. No, it is NOT a sauterne and it does not have any of the botrytis funk, but what it lacks in terms of terroir and environmental impact, it has in spades with regards to technical makeup and impressive patience. This wine was made in the sherry wine style, using the solera technique (a fractional blending system from different age-scales of stacked barrels), which takes forever to get to its full potential. As the wine ages in the barrels its slowly consumes the oxygen and oxidizes the wine slowly, this slow oxidation also makes sure that the wine itself will never further oxidize and makes for a wine that is close to indestructible.

This wine is made from a blend of late harvest Muscat of Alexandria and 2015 chardonnay that was added in later on to give the wine its incredible balance and acidity. The nose on this wine is almost worth the cost of admission (which I must say is high indeed) showing a crazy nose of caramel, dried nuts, candied walnuts with white chocolate, dried flowers, candied grapefruit, and yellow peach. The mouth is richly balanced and lovely with really intense mouth coating sweetness that is both incredibly oily in nature and one that glistens in the glass with legs that go on forever, But it is also perfectly balanced by great acid with rich spices, spicy oak, with candied pear and lychee, really nice. The finish is long and never ending with a sweetness that is perfectly balanced and NOT cloying. Bravo!! (available only in Israel from Yaacov)

2014 Chateau Marsac Seguineau, Margaux – Score: A- to A
Lovely rich black fruit, so young with crazy mineral, saline, with mushroom and hints of barnyard, with crazy elegance and green note that are in your face, more than I expected, but epic elegance. The mouth is layered and extracted and crazy good and rich acid, with blackberry, ripe currant, with layers of elegance and complexity, showing draping tannin that dries the mouth, rich and epic, mineral takes center stage with spice galore, wow. Long and crazy dry finish, ripping acid, mounds of mineral, rich leather, tobacco leaf, espresso, and rich saline, with lots of foliage lingering long. Bravo! Drink 2020 till 2030. (available only in France – why? I do not know)

2014 Chateau Malartic Lagraviere – Score: A- to A
Up till this point, I had tasted many lovely wines, but this one is on a different level of the 2014s I have tasted so far, it is the best, with Giscours a slight step behind.
Lovely, insanely elegant, truly special, crazy impressive nose, rich red and black fruit, with mushroom and earth. Crazy young full-bodied wine, it is richly extracted, layered and intense, out of this world focused attack, with concentration and elegance, with chocolate and mineral, scraping graphite, toast and smoke, crazy rich and dark with both black and red brooding fruit, blackberry, dark cherry, and dried raspberry, controlled like a raging bull in a cage, with crazy mineral and mushroom. The finish is long and green, with rich earthy and mushroomy notes, with tobacco, leather, and mad foliage on a never-ending linger. Bravo!! Drink 2020 till 2030.

2014 Chateau Giscours – Score: A- to A
Lovely dirty and earthy nose with mushroom juice and great black fruit. The mouth on this full-bodied wine is rich and crazy extracted, with rich elegance and impressive saline, showing lovely hints of blueberry, with lovely blackberry, lavender, and rich herb that give way to dark cherry, with mounds of charcoal and crazy spice, that is never-ending, showing layers of complex fruit. Long, spicy, and green finish with an intense concentration of rich green notes, with leather notes, mushroom, foliage, and graphite lingering long. Impressive, but a slight step behind the epic Malartic. BRAVO! Drink 2021 till 2031.

2014 Chateau Tour Saint Christophe – Score: A- to A
The wine was slightly corked, and that was really sad. The nose is dirty and earthy, with rich black and red fruit, with lovely menthol, and green notes galore. The mouth on this full bodied wine is crazy rich, layered and richly extracted, with intense acid, mouth coating tannin, lovely blackberry, raspberry, with crazy rich mineral, scraping graphite, and lovely earth and mushroom, that gives way to green notes and lovely vanilla and hints of butterscotch. The finish is long and earthy with green notes galore, foliage, and tannin and elegance that is truly impressive and elegant that lingers long with mushroom, mineral, graphite, and green notes galore – bravo!! Drink 2020 to 2030.

2014 Chateau Pape Clement – Score: A- to A
Lovely dark and ripe nose with rich notes of smoke, rich dark fruit, rich tiled earth, mushroom, fresh earth, and lovely forest floor. The mouth on this full bodied wine is rich and layered, extracted and ripe with rich mineral, all wrapped in a dark and inky structure, with rich forest floor, blackberry, dark raspberry, with insane mouth coating tannin that makes for a rich unctuous wine, showing green notes with herb and ripe fruit. Long and rich finish with green notes, lovely foliage, tobacco, chocolate, herbs galore, with mineral and spice on the long finish – Bravo!!! Drink from 2022 to 2033. (officially only available in France)

2014 Chateau Soutard – Score: A- to A
Lovely insane nose of tobacco, smoked meat, rich earth, with crazy tart fruit and dark brooding black notes, with black olives, and earth. The mouth on this full bodied wine is impressive, richly extracted, with rich layers of concentrated fruit, dark blackberry, with red fruit, sitting on a bed of pure forest floor and mushroom, showing dark fruit in the background, with great tart and yet earth notes, with rich layers of crazy fruit, green notes, foliage, and lovely elegance. The finish is super long and dirty as black with a touch spice, dark fruit with mad earth and draping tannin. Licorice and good green notes, showing tar, and juicy fruit. Drink 2020 to 2030.

2014 Chateau Rayne Vigneau – Score: A- to A
What a crazy nose of funk and rich luscious apricots, with crazy young and sweet nose of honeysuckle, rich honeyed melon, honeyed notes, orange blossom, with ripe fruit that is balanced by intense bright fruit. The mouth on this full body wine is rich and layered, with impressive concentration, with rich layers and complexity that is mind-blowing, with ripe guava, orange, nectarines and honeydew melon that are all balanced by lovely acid that is ever present but well balanced, followed by epic sweet notes and more lovely funk. The finish is insane, absolutely crazy long, lingering in the mouth for minutes, with perfectly balanced fruit and acid and funk that is rich, concentrated, but augmented with slate, mineral, and capable of handling any sweet dessert or foie gras. Bravo!! Drink from 2023 till 2035.

2014 Capcanes la flor del flor de primavera Samso – Score: A- to A
This wine is made of 100% Carignan. The nose on this wine is old-world all the way, with great tar, asphalt, earth and black fruit. The mouth is richly old-world, showing a denseness yet elegance at the same time, with dirt, earth, crazy roasted animal, rich spice, dark fruit, with rich acid giving the wine a nice balance, wrapped in crazy mouth drying tannin, with intense extraction, ripe blackberry, raspberry, and strawberry. The finish is long and earthy, with tar showing richly, along with scraping mineral giving way to earth, loam, and forest floor with barnyard in the background, coffee, and leather. Bravo!! Drink from 2021 to 2028.

2014 Herzog Cabernet Sauvignon, Limited Edition, Clone Six, Chalk Hill – Score: A- to A
This wine proves that you can make an old-world style wine with new world fruit, all you need it skill and interest. This wine to me is the bigger brother of the wine of the year, the 2014 Herzog Cabernet Sauvignon, Alexander Valley. Of course, they are nowhere near each other on the map (fruit wise of score-wise), but they channel the same core philosophy, a beautiful old-world wine in a new world region – Bravo!

The nose on this wine is rich and redolent, really impressive, with green notes galore, foliage, true elegance, ripe black fruit, with mineral, graphite, and lovely earth. The mouth is full body, earthy, inky, and richly extracted, showing new world can impress like the old world, with crazy earth, impressive acid and green notes with foliage, balance, and elegance that really blows me away. The mouth is backed by ripe blackberry, cassis, ripe raspberry, and crazy rich earth and forest floor, with fruit structure and focus and elegance that truly impresses. The finish is lovely, long and green, with tobacco, dark chocolate, green notes, menthol, and licorice! Bravo! Drink from 2020 to 2029.

Interesting Wines

2016 Les Marronniers Chablis – Score: 92 (mevushal) (QPR)
Finally! A reasonably (not cheap but reasonable) priced white wine that is more mineral than fruit focused – nice! The nose on this wine is lovely, with green apples, ripe melon, green notes, with nice mineral and lovely herbs galore. The mouth on this medium bodied wine is lovely, it is really well balanced, showing lovely mineral, nice grapefruit, showing nice acid that is citrus in nature, as it gives way to a lovely round and yet tart mouth with yellow plum and good herb. The finish is long and really tart, lovely citrus pith, with lemon Fraiche, lemongrass, with slate, saline, tart fruit, and nice floral notes lingering long. Bravo! Drink by 2021.

2015 Herzog Chardonnay, Special Reserve, Russian River – Score: A- (QPR)
This wine is ripe, no denying that but by far the most balanced of many years with a far better control on the “Oak Monster”. The nose on this wine is under control, with great buttery notes, sweet apple, pear, hints of guava, and nice quince, but balanced well with herb and spice. The mouth on this wine is nice and full bodied, but it needs time, with nice saline, mineral notes that are unique for this wine, well balanced with screaming acid, nice butter, showing a creamy and almost oily texture, nectarines and orange, with sweet quinine and white chocolate. Nice and elegant with grapefruit and citrus and oak. Drink by 2024.

2015 Chevalier de Lascombes – Score: 93 (QPR though the price will be high)WOW, how this wine changed from when we tasted it in the barrel. This wine is a blend of 50% Cabernet Sauvignon and 50% Merlot. It is the second label of Chateau Lascombes. What a crazy nose, incredibly different than the Listrac, with a unique nose of soy sauce with mushroom and rich black fruit. The mouth on this full bodied wine is richly extracted, with raspberry, cherry, blackberry, and blueberry in the background, with a lovely ripe but well-controlled fruit-forward style, that is mouth drying and hedonistic. The finish is long and green and blue with rich saline, charcoal, and earth. A lovely unique and fun wine. Bravo for the price! Drink from 2020 to 2027.

2015 Chateau Moulin Riche – Score: 93
With the last one being 2011 (ignoring 2013), I added this one here. This wine was very close to what we tasted from the barrel. This wine is a blend of 70% Cabernet Sauvignon and 30% Merlot. The Cabernet is taking center stage, for now, showing great control with rich black fruit, dirt, herb, tar, smoke, and great spice. The mouth is rich and layered, with a lovely rich mouthfeel, showing incredible rich blackberry, cassis, dark cherry, and lovely green notes, with foliage, tobacco, menthol, dark chocolate and lovely rich espresso. The finish is long and the tannin is mouth coating and drying, incredible with butterscotch and rich green notes. Drink from 2022 2030

2014 Domaine Chantal Lescure Pommard – Score: 93
Fruity but stinky and lovely with roasted meat, lovely earth and rich mineral with dirt and rich green notes, with red and blue notes with rich herb and rich green notes. The mouth on this medium bodied wine is really crazy rich dirt and rich extraction showing lovely green olives, saline, rich coffee all wrapped in inane mouth coating tannin and rich mouth that is never-ending, green and rich with foliage, sweet herb, with raspberry, currant, and dark Kirsh cherry and rich tannin. The finish is long and green with lovely cloves sweet spices, leather, more meat, and tannin that linger long with elegance and style. Bravo! Drink from 2020 to 2028. (available in France)

2016 Nik Weiss Riesling, Ockfener – 92 (QPR)
To me this wine is really not ready – but it will be ready in a few months to start enjoying. It took a long time to open for me. The nose starts off closed but with time it opens with hints of petrol (which will come with more time), with sweet lovely notes of coconut, ripe peach, honeysuckle, floral notes, with bright and ripe guava, tart melon, and mineral, and slate galore. The mouth on this medium bodied wine is nice and round, with good saline, but now the acid is even crazier than when first opened, with a still rich round mouth but now it is perfectly balanced with the ripping acid, crazy candied grapefruit, lime galore, with kiwi, and sweet gooseberry notes, all wrapped in an oily texture and rich tart fruit. The finish is long, tart, yet very sweet, but not cloying, very refreshing, with mineral, slate, rock, and hints of flint that will expand with time, along with nice sweet spices and sweet dark tea. Bravo!!! Drink from 2019 to 2028.

2015 Shirah Carignan – Score: 92
This is Shirah wine’s first Carignan, and it is a very nice wine. The nose on this wine is quite unique and lovely, screaming with lovely Brett, and great root beer, with ripe black fruit, rich blue fruit mingling with fun dark currant and rich baking spices. What a lovely medium bodied mouth with rich extraction, nice mineral with lovely dark blackcurrant, ripe boysenberry, with lovely mouth drying tannin, rich saline, great graphite, with black and white pepper, showing green fruit and foliage with white stone fruit, and lovely spice. The finish is long and spicy with earth and mineral lingering long. Bravo! Drink from 2019 to 2024. (will be released soon, if not already out)

2014 Shirah Bro.deux – Score: 93
This wine is a blend of 36% Cabernet Sauvignon. 18% Cabernet Franc. 18% Malbec. 18% Petit Verdot. 10% Syrah. The blend is unique, and definitely NOT Bordeaux legally, but in style and mouthfeel, this wine is a California dead-ringer for a Semi-Parkerized Bordeaux wine.
Wow! What an old-world nose, with crazy green notes, and rich earth, with foliage and lovely mint, with ripe red fruit. The mouth on this medium bodied wine shows classic Shirah rich extraction, showing nice notes of Brett, giving way to foliage, and rich fruit body and Cali texture, with rich green old-world notes that are phenomenal, nice mushroom, graphite, dark candied raspberry, currant, Kirsh cherry, and lovely blackberry all coming together beautifully. Wow, this wine is really coming together with tannin, mad fruit, and rich green notes, foliage that gives way to mineral, graphite, and rich earth and red fruit, dark chocolate, licorice, tobacco, and leather. Bravo! Drink from 2019 to 2025.

2016 Domain Netofa Tel Qasser, White – Score: A-
This wine is 100% Roussanne that was fermented in steel and then aged 10 months in French oak. The wine has changed since we tasted it from the barrel. The nose on this wine is lovely with impressive funk,
Lovely funky nose with smoke, walnuts, pine nuts, with mad straw, dry mineral, and lovely with dried pear, and dried yellow apple. The mouth is lovely, rich and layered and crazy fun with layers of yellow plum, lovely white peach, rich acidity, with dried and roasted herbs, showing lemongrass, with dried and Smokey notes, earth, and lovely spice, with dry preserved lemon, orange zest, and lovely sweet baking spices. Drink by 2022. (sadly for now still only available in Israel)

2016 Shirah Vintage Whites – Score: A- (QPR)
This wine is a blend of 70% Grenache Blanc and 30% Viognier. The nose on this wine is screaming Viognier and far less Grenache Blanc, with epic peaches and creme, showing rich notes of honeysuckle, honeyed notes of fruit, a truly perfumed nose that is a joy to smell. The mouth on this medium bodied wine is layered and rich, with great acid, lovely fruit pith, that is both unctuous and yet lithe at the same time, with nice summer fruit focus, showing apricot and hints of the Grenache Blanc with green apple, and lovely mineral. The finish is rich and lovely with joyous fruit pith, lovely spices, and lingering green tea. Bravo!!! Drink by 2021.

]]>https://kosherwinemusings.com/2018/01/03/my-top-25-kosher-wines-of-2017-including-wine-of-the-year-and-best-wine-of-the-year-awards/feed/8wall of winewinemusingsTop QPR Kosher wine winners of 2017https://kosherwinemusings.com/2018/01/01/top-qpr-kosher-wine-winners-of-2017/
https://kosherwinemusings.com/2018/01/01/top-qpr-kosher-wine-winners-of-2017/#commentsTue, 02 Jan 2018 07:30:23 +0000http://kosherwinemusings.com/?p=193404In my state of kosher wine industry post – I lamented at the lack of QPR (Quality to Price Ratio) options in the kosher wine world. Now that is not to say that the options do not exist, as you can see by the number of QPR options on my top wines for Passover last year. Still, given the sheer number of wines in a kosher wine store (many hundreds) and the number of kosher wines on the open market (many thousands), we are left with a very small minority – sadly.

So, I thought I would list the most recent QPR wines I have enjoyed over the past year. I wanted to catch up with wines I only had recently and with ones that are finally here in the USA.

My hope is that people will enjoy the wines and demand more of them. For instance, the lack of many of the QPR wines from Elvi Wines on the open market. I can find them on Royal’s website and on Elvi’s website, but sadly until recently, they were not available on the internet. Thankfully, Kosherwine.com has gotten the Elvi wines back, but Netofa wines are still not available here in the USA.

This list is not a list of wines that are meant for cellaring, though many can withstand a few years. The idea here is to enjoy these wines now while you let the long-term wines cellar and age. We all have that interest to drink interesting wines and while I agree with that, that is NO excuse to raid the cellar when u have a hunkering for a complex nose or flavor. Many of these wines will scratch the itch while the beasts’ lie and settle.

Sadly, the main wines I have yet to taste and those that I think belong on this list, based upon what I hear of them, are the 2016 Capcousto wines, but I cannot find them online.

QPR KING of 2017

2016 Chateau Des Riganes – Score: 90 (mevushal)
This is the third vintage from the winery and the best one by far! The 2015 vintage was boring and the 2014 vintage was not as good. I tried writing the notes for this wine a few times and then I threw them all out, only because it keeps changing – the core stays the same but the issues I had, hollow notes, mad fruitiness, go away with time/air. So, to start – leave this wine open for two hours before enjoying it and that removes two rounds to three rounds of evolution from my notes.
After it has opened for a couple of hours, now the wine is ready to enjoy. The nose opens to rich loam, earth, gone are the fruit bomb notes, with lovely mushroom, foliage galore, with classic bramble, dark cherry, currant, and hints of raspberry. With time the wine opens to a fuller mouth than first perceived, gone is the hollow notes, with a nice fruit focus, good tannin structure, gone is the country style wine, now the wine is richer, and fuller, with a lovely green foliage focus, followed by dark red forest berry, cherry, hints of black fruit, great saline, earth, mushroom, and lovely spice. The finish is long and spicy, with more green notes, an almost lush forest with good spice, and pith. Nice! Drink till 2021.

QPR top 10 Winners (in no particular order)

2016 Domaine Netofa White – Score: A- (Crazy QPR)
Nothing new here, other than the label. The wine continues to impress, throw in the fantastic joy of Chenin Blanc, and the price and we have another winner from Netofa!
Lovely floral nose still closed, but lovely with straw, hay, rich green apple, quince, and lovely bright fruit. What can I say, this medium-bodied wine is another acid homerun, showing lovely bright and fresh fruit, that gives way to a great acid core, with mineral, mad citrus, grapefruit, with lovely dried white currant, herb, and more floral notes. The finish is a long and fruity acid trip, with rich mineral, followed by lovely lemon curd, more citrus, with bright fruit. Bravo! Drink by 2020. (Available only in Israel, for now anyway)

2015 Capcanes Peraj Petita – Score: A- (Crazy QPR)
This wine is a blend of 50% Grenache, 20% Merlot, 15% Tempranillo, and 15%Syrah. This wine is much akin to the 2014 vintage, in that it is immediately accessible, but I like the 2015 vintage more. Really nice nose, with rich toast, smoke, followed by rich tar, asphalt, with lovely black fruit, tobacco, and more mineral. The mouth on this medium bodied wine is really fun, layered and concentrated with dark fruit, blackberry, hints of blue fruit, with ribbons of scrapping mineral, graphite, followed by nice Kirsch cherry, with great earth and dirt. The finish is long and earthy, with great dirt, mineral, green notes, and hints of mushroom and black tea. Bravo!!! Drink by 2021.

2014 Herzog Cabernet Sauvignon, Special Reserve, Alexander Valley – Score: 92 to 93 (QPR Superstar) (mevushal)
Lovely nose, impressive elegant and old world nose, peaking with a blackcurrant showing blackberry and lovely smoke and tar. The mouth is old world, wow, give me a break, in ways the wine is crazy better than the Warneke (Special Edition), but with years the Warneke will pass it. The mouth on this medium body, is great layered and rich, green, spicy, and rich with concentration, with sweet oak and sweet dill galore, with green notes, loads of foliage, showing dried strawberry, ripe raspberry, black forest berry, all wrapped in mouth coating and drying tannin, with earth and spice. The finish is long, and richly green, with nice spicy notes, leather and scraping mineral, showing bright and ripe fruit that is impressive, elegant, rich, and layered, with licorice, graphite, and forest floor that lingers long. Bravo!! Drink from 2020 till 2030.

2014 Carmel Riesling, Kayoumi – Score: A- (QPR)
This wine screams dry Alsace Riesling!! The nose is crazy, pure funk, petrol, flint, mineral, WOW! Cannot find much fruit on the nose to start but with time peach shows, but who cares! Sadly, this bottle was tainted with some sort of reduction or Sulfur, it is not clear what the issue was, to be honest, it smelled like actual “trash can”. The mouth on this full bodied wine is insane! Layered and complex with rich acidity, dried fruit, dried apple, lychee, floral notes abound, with rich elegance, followed by nectarines, orange, orange zest, bravo! The finish goes on forever, and I mean not stopping with crazy petrol and floral notes lasting all along – WOW!!! This wine was clearly off to start, but with time it came around and was very close to its old self, sadly the reduction lingered in ways. Drink by 2020.

2016 Shirah Vintage Whites – Score: A- (QPR)
This wine is a blend of 70% Grenache Blanc and 30% Viognier. The nose on this wine is screaming Viognier and far less Grenache Blanc, with epic peaches and creme, showing rich notes of honeysuckle, honeyed notes of fruit, a truly perfumed nose that is a joy to smell. The mouth on this medium bodied wine is layered and rich, with great acid, lovely fruit pith, that is both unctuous and yet lithe at the same time, with nice summer fruit focus, showing apricot and hints of the Grenache Blanc with green apple, and lovely mineral. The finish is rich and lovely with joyous fruit pith, lovely spices, and lingering green tea. Bravo!!! Drink by 2021.

2016 Shirah Rose – Score: A- (QPR)
This wine needs to be aerated to open up its nose and to remove some of the lingering chemical notes, but do not let this deter you from enjoying this lovely wine! This wine reminds me so much of the 2013 rose, epic and screaming acid based. The nose on this wine is classic Cali rose, with ripe strawberry, raspberry, with rich peach, and lovely floral notes. The mouth on this wine has a lovely body, with a great acid punch, with rich fruit red berry focus, followed by lovely citrus, grapefruit, and nectarines. The finish is long and red berry, with more acid, lovely fruit pith that lingers long, followed by light tannin, sweet hints of pineapple, and lovely acid lingering long. BRAVO!! This is a top 3 non-Provence style rose for 2017. Drink by Summer 2018.

2015 Herzog Chardonnay, Reserve, Russian River – Score: A- (mevushal) (QPR)
This wine is ripe, no denying that but by far the most balanced of many years with a far better control on the “Oak Monster”. The nose on this wine is under control, with great buttery notes, sweet apple, pear, hints of guava, and nice quince, but balanced well with herb and spice. The mouth on this wine is nice and full bodied, but it needs time, with nice saline, mineral notes that are unique for this wine, well balanced with screaming acid, nice butter, showing a creamy and almost oily texture, nectarines and orange, with sweet quinine and white chocolate. Nice and elegant with grapefruit and citrus and oak. Drink by 2024.

2016 Elvi Wines Herenza Rioja Semi – Score: 90 (QPR)
Lovely nose with great spice and lovely oak, backed by nice dark fruit, tart, and refreshing while also being elegant. Really nice attack and tart fruit focus, showing a nice tannic approach but also accessible with great tart red fruit, classical in style with spice, green notes, and nice acid that gives way to coffee, nice cherry, and tart zesty currant. The finish is long and tart, with great foliage, spice, tilled earth, and mineral that brings it all together. Bravo! Drink by 2020.

2012 Elvi Wines Herenza Crianza – Score: 91
I have now had this wine a few times and the last time I had it the sweet oak and sweet dill were too much for me, this time the sweet oak and dill had calmed down, which finally allowed the wine to come around. A lovely nose that shows slight age but also elegance and brightness that belies its age. The nose pops with bright fruit, rich sour and candied cherry, dark raspberry, and great secondary and initial tertiary notes with smoke and great spice. The mouth is rich and dirty with great acid, mushroom, sweet dill, and great mineral that gives way to rich spice, lovely tart fruit, red berry, and seating acid. The finish is long and lovely and bright with coffee and red tea and menthol, tobacco, more smoke, and green notes galore. Bravo! Drink by 2025

2015 Gran Malbec Flechas De Los Andes – Score: 91 (QPR)
The nose on this wine is super rich, with toasty oak, ripe but impressively controlled blue and black ripe fruit, crushed herb, and plum. The mouth on this richly extracted and full-bodied wine is impressive to me because no matter how new world this wine is, it is beautifully controlled, with really impressive elegant and mouth coating tannin, rich and toasty followed by blackberry, blueberry fruit, and nice raspberry. The finish is long and spicy with massive tannin, chocolate, tobacco, and lovely roasted meat. Bravo, this wine used to be an out of control beast running in all different direction freaking out most people who had it. However, since the 2014 vintage things have gotten far more controlled. Drink to 2022.

Lots of other great QPR options (in no order):

2016 Nik Weiss Riesling, Ockfener – 92 (QPR)
To me this wine is really not ready – but it will be ready in a few months to start enjoying. It took a long time to open for me. The nose starts off closed but with time it opens with hints of petrol (which will come with more time), with sweet lovely notes of coconut, ripe peach, honeysuckle, floral notes, with bright and ripe guava, tart melon, and mineral, and slate galore. The mouth on this medium bodied wine is nice and round, with good saline, but now the acid is even crazier than when first opened, with a still rich round mouth but now it is perfectly balanced with the ripping acid, crazy candied grapefruit, lime galore, with kiwi, and sweet gooseberry notes, all wrapped in an oily texture and rich tart fruit. The finish is long, tart, yet very sweet, but not cloying, very refreshing, with mineral, slate, rock, and hints of flint that will expand with time, along with nice sweet spices and sweet dark tea. Bravo!!! Drink from 2019 to 2028.

2017 Kos Yeshuos Viognier – score: 91 to 92 (QPR)
Do not cool this wine too much, it likes 30 min in the fridge and no more. Wow, what a nose, very aromatic, classical in its peach punch bowl style, with rich floral notes of jasmine and rose hip, but balanced well with lemongrass, and citrus. The mouth on this medium to full-bodied wine is a classic California Viognier, with a rich oily coat that covers the mouth, well focused with rich acidity, mice mineral, great fruit pith, apricots, peach, and lemon, with hints of lovely pink grapefruit, and sweet fruit galore. The finish is long and acidic, with enough complexity to grab your attention and keep it throughout the finish with lovely white rose tea, sweet spices, notes of fresh lavender, cinnamon, and cloves. Bravo! Drink by 2021.

2016 Carmel Riesling – Score – 91 (QPR)
The wine started off very slowly, in a closed state, and it was inaccessible for a day. A lovely nose, but after smelling the German wines, this pales, with nice petrol, honeysuckle, good spices, but very tropical with guava, passion fruit, and pineapple. The mouth is nice, but a far cry from the 2014 vintage, with nice acidity but not near enough, it is ok but it lacks a clear direction, not a sweet wine and not dry enough, with a unidimensional approach with no focus and a short finish with floral notes, slate, and mineral.

After some time – this wine really comes into its own, showing a nose of nice petrol, grapefruit, kiwi, with green apple, and hints of pineapple. The mouth is nicer with time, showing impressive fruit focus, with great searing acid, but still tropical, with passion fruit, green apple, rich mouthfeel, and lovely gripping fruit that is well balanced and tart with lemon Fraiche, rich floral notes, and good spices. The finish is long and spicy, with ripping acid, lovely fruit, earth, incredible mineral, slate, and rock, with floral notes, and mineral galore. Nice! Drink till 2022

2014 Chateau du Grand Barrail, Blaye, Cotes de Bordeaux – Score: 88 (mevushal) (QPR)
Crazy QPR for the price in France of 5 Euro, or so. Nice simple Bordeaux with nice red fruit, followed by green notes, forest floor, with foliage, green notes, and herb. The mouth on this medium bodied wine is nice, not complex with good focus, nice dried raspberry, cranberry, with lovely tannin, nice body, with good acid, good green notes, earth, dirt, and hints of blue notes as well. The finish is long and tart, with good focus, spice, and foliage galore! Nice! Drink by 2023 (only found in France)

2016 Carmel 4 Vats – Score: A- (GREAT QPR)
Interesting nose, raspberry, jammy fruit, with pushed fruit, but not dates, spice, cloves, mineral, and roasted animal. The mouth is lovely with minerality, ribbons of graphite, but sweeter fruit with nice mouth drying tannin, with rich saline, ripe blackberry, earth, green notes wrapped in blueberry and heady and lovely spice. The finish is long and green with good acid, fresh and tart fruit that gives way to graphite, garrigue, and rich earth, with mushroom in the background. Bravo! Drink by 2019. (only available in Israel)

2016 Les Marronniers Chablis – Score: 92 (mevushal) (QPR)
Finally! A reasonably (not cheap but reasonable) priced white wine that is more mineral than fruit focused – nice! The nose on this wine is lovely, with green apples, ripe melon, green notes, with nice mineral and lovely herbs galore. The mouth on this medium bodied wine is lovely, it is really well balanced, showing lovely mineral, nice grapefruit, showing nice acid that is citrus in nature, as it gives way to a lovely round and yet tart mouth with yellow plum and good herb. The finish is long and really tart, lovely citrus pith, with lemon Fraiche, lemongrass, with slate, saline, tart fruit, and nice floral notes lingering long. Bravo! Drink by 2021.

2015 Chateau Larcis Jaumat – Score: 91 (QPR)
This is a wine that really reminds me of what I tasted in the barrel last year. This will be the new Fourcas-like QPR no-brainer. The nose on this wine shows ripe, with ripe blackberry, earth, nice mineral, good spice and green notes galore. The mouth on this medium to full-bodied wine is lovely, with nice mouth coating tannin, searing mineral, great acid, with rich black olives, saline galore, that is almost tart, with cinnamon, cloves, black pepper, and intense spices. The finish is long, spicy, and green with red berry and mineral that lingers long. Drink by 2025.

2015 Chateau Fourcas Dupre, Listrac – Score: 91 (QPR)
I know this wine is still too young to enjoy – but think of it as a wine that can age a few years and then start hitting, though it would be a shame to start hitting this when it can age for so long. The wine is very akin to what we at the winery from the barrel. The nose on this wine is lovely with tar, dirt, black fruit and hints of blue fruit that show, with herb. The mouth is more focused than the Hautes Terres with great precision showing blackberry that is not ripe with dried currant, well balanced and truly impressive with green foliage that is rich and extracted, with incredible mouth coating tannin, nice incredible spice, black pepper, and tar. The finish is long and earthy with great saline, mineral, and spice that goes on forever with tobacco lingering long and coffee espresso. Bravo! Drink from 2020 to 2027.

2015 Chevalier de Lascombes – Score: 93 (QPR though the price will be high)
This wine is here solely because of the value it represents and NOT for its ability to drink soon – AT ALL! WOW, how this wine changed from when we tasted it in the barrel. This wine is a blend of 50% Cabernet Sauvignon and 50% Merlot. It is the second label of Chateau Lascombes. What a crazy nose, incredibly different than the Listrac, with a unique nose of soy sauce with mushroom and rich black fruit. The mouth on this full bodied wine is richly extracted, with raspberry, cherry, blackberry, and blueberry in the background, with a lovely ripe but well-controlled fruit-forward style, that is mouth drying and hedonistic. The finish is long and green and blue with rich saline, charcoal, and earth. A lovely unique and fun wine. Bravo for the price! Drink from 2020 to 2027.

2016 Domaine Netofa Red – Score: A- (QPR)
This wine is a new blend with the added Grenache, is made up of 50% Syrah, 30% Grenache, and 20% Mourvedre, a real GSM! This wine is riper than previous vintages, but still well controlled, with lovely blue and black fruit, showing plum, earth, and herb. The mouth on this medium bodied wine is fuller and richer than previous vintages, showing with plum, blackberry, raspberry, and dried blueberry, with mineral, lovely graphite, with hints of chocolate and sweet fruit that gives way to slate and dried fruit. The finish is long and earthy with dry blackberry and black tea. Nice! Drink by 2021. (Available only in Israel, for now anyway)

2016 Domaine Netofa Tinto – Score: A- (QPR)
The wine is a Portugal dry blend, made of Tempranillo and Touriga Nacional. The nose on this lovely wine is really intense with a perfect blend of dark black and blue fruit, along with loamy dirt, smoke, great coffee and roasted animal. The mouth on this medium bodied wine is a far less astringent than previous in vintages, something that should make some of you happy (though I love that bitterness IMHO), with lovely ribbons of bitter graphite, followed by blackberry, boysenberry, sweet dill, garrigue, root beer, and mouth coating tannin. The finish is long and dirty, with nice tar, charcoal, coffee, and mineral. Lovely! Drink by 2021. (Available only in Israel, for now anyway)

2014 Louis Blanc Crozes Hermitage – Score: A- (Good QPR)
This is a lovely black fruit Syrah, with hints of blue fruit in the background. The nose on this wine is lovely, with roasted meat, rich licorice, with blueberry notes in the background, along with earth, loam, mineral, and spice galore! The mouth on this medium bodied wine is balanced and well-focused, with a mineral core, followed by sweet boysenberry that comes alive with time, followed by blackberry, spiced plum, and rich loam, that is wrapped in spicy oak, rich mouth coating tannin, and fig. The finish is long and spicy, with leather, chocolate, lovely charcoal, and bitter almond notes that give the wine its edge. The sweet fruit shows quickly and really is a nice wine, I hope it turns more French with time. It is ready now and will be at peak in two years. Drink till 2021.

2015 Domaine Pradelle Crozes-Hermitage, Bokobsa – Score: A- (QPR)
This is one of the three wines that Pierre made for Bokobsa in 2015. Normally these wines are not really my cup of tea, but these were really nice! The wine shows a lovely ripe, but a controlled nose with great acid, saline, with blackberry and blueberry. Nice medium body with good acid, great draping tannin that will last three-plus years with nice pepper and cloves with dried raspberry and currant. The finish is long and spicy with great earth, mineral, and graphite galore. Bravo! Drink by 2020.

2011 Yarden Rose, Brut: Score: A-
A lovely nose, with toast, yeast, and really nice raspberry, and grapefruit. The mouth on this medium bodied wine is lovely, with great focus, small mousse bubbles, with great raspberry, dried strawberry, grapefruit, saline, a mineral madness that lingers long with lime and lovely toasty notes. The finish is long and mineral-focused, with great acid, and joy, green olives, and a true joy that is infectious. The wine is a joy and lingers long with real focus. Bravo!! Drink by 2021.

2009 Yarden Blanc de Blanc: Score: A- (QPR)
Sorry, I cannot find my notes on it but it is lovely!

2014 Yarden Chardonnay, Katzrin – Score: A- (QPR)
This wine showed older than it really is and was quite surprising to me. The color lies of its age, it is far darker than I would have expected, with lovely stone fruit, mounds of butter and butterscotch, but actually less obvious oak than in previous vintages, but still very nutty, and herbal in nature. The mouth on this full bodied wine is crazy rich and oily with layers upon layers of peaches, apples, quince, rich buttered brioche, creamy and complex, but a bit hot and needs time to come together. Good acid and fruit overall. Drink by 2023.

2016 Ella Valley Sauvignon Blanc – Score: A- (QPR)
Lovely nose of gooseberry and pure grapefruit, cat piss, with earth and slate. Lovely mouthfeel, with peach and apricot, showing crazy mouth drying acid, a lovely shot of grapefruit that fills out the round mouth, with peach, and tart green apple. The finish is long and crazy acidic, with intensely tart fruit, lovely tart citrus, lemonella, with mad slate, lemongrass, and another large dollop of gooseberry on the long citrus/acid-driven fruit finish. Bravo!!! Drink by 2019.

2016 Dalton Sauvignon Blanc, Reserve – Score: A- (QPR)
This nose is nice, with a bit more elegance than the Fume Blanc from Dalton, but also showing sweeter notes, with gooseberry for sure, but backed by more ripe peach than guava, with lemongrass, and herb. The mouth on this medium bodied wine is nice, with crazy acid, intense fruit focus, with great mouth filling acid, nice summer fruit of peach, pear, and a bit of guava, with good green notes. The finish is long and richly citrus based, with nice fruit pith, impressive saline, slate, rock, and passion fruit lingering long. Bravo! Drink by 2019.

2015 Shirah Furmint – Score: A- (QPR)
This too needs a good two hours of air. This wine is more intoxicating than the MR/SR, with intense straw, dry grass, with dry apple/pear compote, peach, honeyed notes, honeysuckle, and spice. The mouth on this medium bodied is ripping acid, with great honeysuckle, peach, almost apricot in nature, with great spices, cinnamon, crazy rich mineral, tart fruit, dry grass, and impressive straw. The finish is long and layered with hints of oak, almonds, and nice tea. This is very akin to the Dalton Semillon in some ways and in many ways much drier. BRAVO!! Drink by 2020.

2016 Dalton Viognier, Reserve – Score: A- (QPR)
The nose is classic Viognier, with peach, oak, showing good apricot, sweet rose hips, and a perfume of honeysuckle, and orange blossom. The mouth is medium bodied, with a nice almost oily mouthfeel, showing nice weight, with good notes of summer fruit, with just enough acid, wish there was more, with lovely pear and nectarines. The finish is long and balanced with good enough acid, lovely mineral, slate, and more floral notes balanced well with honeyed notes and earth. nice! Drink by 2020.

2016 Hagafen White Riesling Dry, Rancho Wieruszowski – Score: A- (QPR) (mevushal)
In so many ways this wine reminds me of 2014 in its infancy, though it lacks the intense mineral that was already present in the 2014’s adolescence. Still, the wine does have a lot going for it.

The nose on this wine is richly tropical, showing a nose of intense guava, passion fruit, with hints of petrol starting to emerge, with peach and apricot and ripe pineapple. The mouth is beautiful with sweet fruit, intense funk, and insane honeysuckle, floral notes abound, with great acid, intense honeyed notes of sweet fruit, ripe citrus, nectarines, and ripe fruit, earth and hay/straw, lovely. The finish is long with more funk, mineral, with sweet and crazy tart fruit and rich acid, crisp, refreshing, and downright enjoyable/fun wine. Look for more petrol to emerge with time, and for the tropical notes to subside as well. Bravo! Once more Mr. Weir has done an impeccable job. Drink by 2021.

2013 Cotes de Brouilly – Score: 90 (QPR)
What a lovely nose, showing great dirt, earth, cloves, bay leaf, with great mushroom, forest floor, with lovely red fruit, black forest berry, and herb. The mouth on this medium bodied wine is rich and layered, but round, with acid that takes time to appear, with good focus and complex as the wine opens, with great raspberry, currant, smoke, rich mushroom, and herb, and ripe black plum, with good spice, black pepper, and heady spice. The finish is long and spicy, with cloves, herb, espresso coffee, with hints of dark chocolate, graphite, saline, mineral, and spice.

2015 Capcanes Peraj Haabib Flor de Primavera Pinot Noir – Score: 91 (QPR)
The nose is not a Pinot Noir, it is more a Bordeaux or a Rhone varietal, with ripe fruit, with mushroom, forest floor, with ripe blackberry, earth, and nice red fruit. The mouth on this medium bodied wine is well balanced, with good acid, showing nice dirt, fresh loam, earth, and rich mushroom, that gives way to more great acid, ripping tannin focus, with great layers and nice concentration, a new world take on an old world wine, with great vanilla, cedar, lovely coffee, and spices, warm spices, cinnamon, cloves, with more rich barnyard and mushroom, and nutmeg. Bravo!

2014 Domaine de Boissan Gigondas – Score: A- (QPR)
This wine is a blend of 80% Grenache and 20% Syrah. To me, this is what Rhone should taste like, mineral, dirt, graphite galore, with blue and black fruit, and a hint of red. Lovely.
The nose on this wine starts off with blackberry, tar, earth, blue fruit, and spice.
This wine showed bubbles to start, but that blew off after a few hours. The wine has changed slightly since my last tasting, it now has a bit less mineral and more fruit, but all very controlled, but I think the drinking window I had on it was too long, I lowered it to 2020. The mouth on this medium bodied wine is rich with lovely coffee, nice mineral, mouth coating tannin, that gives way to blackberry, blueberry, dark cherry, cranberry, with lovely loam, and roasted meat. The finish is long and mineral rich, with espresso lingering long, tobacco, with chalk and slate. The wine now shows the acid I like, it has improved since my last bottle. Nice! Drink to 2020.

2014 Chateau Montroc – Score: A- (mevushal) (QPR)
This is a nice wine that shows what France can make for 15 dollars a bottle. The nose on this wine is old world, with red fruit, earth, mineral, and nice fruit focus. The mouth on this medium bodied wine is balanced and really good for a menu wine, showing nice spice, earth, red fruit, all wrapped in blackberry, black fruit, with dirt, mushroom, and acid galore. The finish is long and green with foliage, nice smoke, toast, and rich spices. Nice! Drink by 2021.

2012 Domaine Herzberg Village – Score: 90 (QPR)
This wine is a field blend of 33% Malbec, 33% Cabernet Sauvignon, and 34% Merlot that were co-fermented and aged in oak for 12 months. The nose on this wine starts with whiffs of nice oak, great spice, and earth, showing raspberry, with great cloves and black and white pepper. The mouth on this medium bodied wine shows heady spice and rich acid, with a lovely currant fruit focus, along with dried raspberry, and hints of black fruit. The finish is long and green, with nice foliage, coffee, spice, and nice mineral. Nice! Drink by 2021.

2014 Chateau Malmaison, Baronne Nadine de Rothschild – Score: A- (QPR)
This wine is a short-term hold and one that will play nicely with the longer-term wines that need serious cellar time. Nice elegant nose of green notes, rich foliage, with dark cherry, earth, and good red fruit. A lovely medium to full-bodied wine, with great focus, elegance, nice structure, with dark red fruit, and hints of black fruit, blackberry with dark cherry, good terroir, with mushroom, draping tannin and soft loam. The finish is long and green, showing a lovely mineral focus, with graphite galore, awesome saline and ripping acid. Lovely! Drink 2019 till 2024.

]]>https://kosherwinemusings.com/2018/01/01/top-qpr-kosher-wine-winners-of-2017/feed/2winemusingsFour Gates Winery’s January 2018 new releaseshttps://kosherwinemusings.com/2017/12/27/four-gates-winerys-january-2018-new-releases/
https://kosherwinemusings.com/2017/12/27/four-gates-winerys-january-2018-new-releases/#commentsThu, 28 Dec 2017 02:25:30 +0000http://kosherwinemusings.com/?p=193380As you all know, I am a huge fan of Four Gates Winery, and yes he is a dear friend. So, as is my custom, as many ask me what wines I like of the new releases, here are my notes on the new wines.

Other than maybe Yarden and Yatir (which are off my buying lists – other than their whites and bubblies), very few if any release wines later than Four Gates. This year is a re-release of the 2014 Petite Sirah and 2014 Zinfandel in a blended format called – MPSZ. Of course, it includes the 2014 Mourvedre, which is also being released a single varietal under the Ayala label.

Another wine this year under the Ayala label is the NV Chardonnay, it is a nice wine that did not go through malolactic fermentation, so while it has creamy notes, the rich butter and butterscotch notes of previous chardonnays will not be found here.

The rest of the wines are the normal suspects, but this year’s crop, like last years, is really impressive. You have a 2014 Four Gates Pinot Noir, an NV Four Gates Cabernet Franc (a blend of the 2014 & 2015 vintages), the 2013 Four Gates Merlot, La Rochelle, the 2013 Four Gates Cabernet Sauvignon, Monte Bello Ridge, Betchart Vineyard, and the 2013 Four Gates Frere Robaire.

2014 Four Gates MPSZ – Score: 91
This wine is a blend of Mourvedre, Petit Sirah, and Zinfandel. This is a fun classic Cali wine, floral, sweet, spices galore, with sweet oak, and lovely red and blue fruit. The mouth on this medium bodied wine is fun with raspberry, plum, ripe juicy strawberry, blueberry, all wrapped in nice tannin, with nice mineral, spice, and zesty fruit. The finish is long and rich, with sweet notes, black olives, and cinnamon. Drink by 2021

2014 Four Gates Pinot Noir – Score: 92 to 93
This nose is a classic Four Gates Pinot, with chicken cherry cola, sweet raspberry, lovely spices, menthol, herb, and rich spice. The mouth on this full bodied wine is rich, layered, elegant, lovely, with green notes, lovely foliage, sweet oak, with sweet cherry, raspberry galore, and crazy Benyo acid, with smoke, vanilla, hints of mushroom (which will show more with age), earth, and loam. The finish is long and green, richly acidic, menthol galore, herb, coffee, loads of tart red fruit, and more smoke. Bravo!!! Drink from 2019 to 2027

NV Four Gates Cabernet Franc – Score: 93
This is a blend of 2014 and 2015 vintages. This wine is a classic Benyo special, what a wine, this is crazy fun, what a rich floral, raspberry nose, with violets, rich tart fruit, with cherry, chocolate, mushroom, and foliage galore. The mouth on this full-bodied wine is really fun, rich, layered, with a real mouthfeel that gives way to mushroom, rich tilled earth, with red fruit, plum, raspberry, vanilla, and lovely focus, that gives way to great acid and sweet forest floor. The finish is long and green, with bell pepper, foliage, with vanilla, leather, and heather. Bravo!!! Drink 2020 to 2027

2013 Four Gates Merlot, La Rochelle – Score: 94
The nose on this wine is plum heaven, with crazy truffle, mushroom, and rich tart raspberry, followed by black fruit, and rich dirt. The mouth on this full bodied wine is crazy, rich, layered, with layer after layer of concentrated fruit, nice extraction, and intense acidic, with tannin galore, perfectly balanced, with sweet red raspberry, plum, sweet currant, black forest berry, and dark cherry. The finish is long and green, with foliage, mushroom, vanilla, sweet oak, spice, with menthol, mineral, graphite, sweet red fruit, and acid plays well together. Bravo!! Drink from 2020 to 2030.

2013 Four Gates Cabernet Sauvignon, Monte Bello Ridge, Betchart Vineyard – Score: 94
Lovely nose of earth, dirt, green notes, caraway seeds, coffee grinds, with black fruit hiding behind good bright notes, and mineral. The mouth on this full bodied wine, is rich and layered, showing lovely extraction, rich blackberry, blackcurrant, with impressive fruit structure, showing elegance and attack, with great focus and spice, spicy oak wrapped in earth and mouth coating and expressive tannin, with so much tar that it feels like road work in the mouth, and green notes galore. The finish is long and green with focus and power, showing dark chocolate, foliage, with scraping mineral, graphite, and mounds of earth lingering long. BRAVO! Drink from 2021 to 2031.

2013 Four Gates Frere Robaire – Score: 94
Another stunning wine, come on, this wine will and always reminds me of Chateau Malartic, and depending on how long you age it, the Malartic vintage compares well. The nose on this wine is lovely, as it opens, it is ripe to start with loads of fruit, mounds of finesse, and sweet oak, with rich mineral, herb, black fruit, with a bit of red in the background, and lovely graphite, and spice. The mouth on this full bodied wine is ripe and opens slowly with rich layers upon layers of sweet fruit, followed by earth, tilled loam, with green notes galore, sweet blackberry, plum, with concentration and rich extraction that gives way to layers of mouth coating tannin, vanilla, and spice. The finish is long and earthy, with foliage, green notes, anise, earth, leather, rich sweet milk chocolate, mushroom, and loads of forest floor. Drink from 2021 to 2030.

]]>https://kosherwinemusings.com/2017/12/27/four-gates-winerys-january-2018-new-releases/feed/32017-2018 release of Four Gates Wineswinemusings2017 Kos Yeshuos Viognierhttps://kosherwinemusings.com/2017/12/24/2017-kos-yeshuos-viognier/
https://kosherwinemusings.com/2017/12/24/2017-kos-yeshuos-viognier/#respondSun, 24 Dec 2017 17:34:53 +0000http://kosherwinemusings.com/?p=193373This past Shabbos I had the chance to taste the Kos Yeshuos Viognier and it is a very nice California style Viognier. I have already posted about Josh Rynderman – the winemaker of Kos Yeshuos, a person I consider a friend, so that is an honest and fair disclaimer, as I always state as well with Four Gates Winery and Benyomin Cantz.

2017 Kos Yeshuos Viognier – score: 91 to 92
Do not cool this wine too much, it likes 30 min in the fridge and no more. Wow, what a nose, very aromatic, classical in its peach punch bowl style, with rich floral notes of jasmine and rose hip, but balanced well with lemongrass, and citrus. The mouth on this medium to full-bodied wine is a classic California Viognier, with a rich oily coat that covers the mouth, well focused with rich acidity, mice mineral, great fruit pith, apricots, peach, and lemon, with hints of lovely pink grapefruit, and sweet fruit galore. The finish is long and acidic, with enough complexity to grab your attention and keep it throughout the finish with lovely white rose tea, sweet spices, notes of fresh lavender, cinnamon, and cloves. Bravo!

]]>https://kosherwinemusings.com/2017/12/24/2017-kos-yeshuos-viognier/feed/02017 Kos Yeshuos ViognierwinemusingsA wine tasting of some incredible 2014 kosher French wines with Nathan Grandjeanhttps://kosherwinemusings.com/2017/12/19/a-wine-tasting-of-some-incredible-2014-kosher-french-wines-with-nathan-grandjean/
https://kosherwinemusings.com/2017/12/19/a-wine-tasting-of-some-incredible-2014-kosher-french-wines-with-nathan-grandjean/#commentsTue, 19 Dec 2017 23:04:03 +0000http://kosherwinemusings.com/?p=193319When I last left off on the story of my trip to Israel and Europe, I had just ended with a classic run for the border to Weingut Von Hovel. After we returned from visiting Von Hovel we had a wine tasting. It included some new 2016 wines but it mostly involved French wines from the 2014 vintage and earlier.

As I posted here and here, I have been trying to get to all of the 2014 French wines and as many of the 2015 vintages that are released. With this last tasting, I have been able to get to most of the top 2014 kosher French wines that I know of. The two top 2014 kosher Bordeaux wines that I have been able to taste are the 2014 Chateau Pape Clement and the 2014 Smith Haut Lafite (which I tasted here at this tasting). Right after those superstars come the 2014 Chateau Giscours, 2014 Chateau Malartic, the 2014 Chateau Tour Saint Christophe, the 2014 Chateau Soutard, and the 2014 Chateau Marsac Seguineau. In regards to Sauternes, the two winners are the 2014 Chateau Rayne Vigneau, 1er Cru Classe, and the 2014 Chateau La Tour Blanche, 1er Cru Classe.

I had not been able to taste the Smith Haut Lafite or the 2014 Chateau La Tour Blanche, 1er Cru Classe, until this tasting and they were not a letdown in any manner. WOW, they were worth the trip and worth stocking up where and if possible.

If you are interested in these wines, they are mostly wines that are here or will be here eventually. If you cannot find them or do not want to wait – email Nathan Grandjean about how to get them: Contact@yavine.fr (I DO NOT work for wine stores, never have and never will. I get no kickback or payment for this). I state this here only as information. It also seems that kosherwine.com will soon have the 2014 Chateau La Tour Blanche, 1er Cru Classe as well.

We continued tasting these wines for more than a day, it was only after a long time that the great 2014 wines really opened up. Also, we tasted the Von Hovels throughout this time as well (I did not post the scores here again, as they are in their own post).

2016 LI BI Rose, Cotes du Rhone – Score: 88
The wine is a rose made of 80% Grenache and 20% Syrah. Lovely nose of grapefruit, floral notes, with green apple, gooseberry, with nectarines, and good mineral. The mouth is nice enough, the acid is medium in nature, and while it is well balanced it is unidimensional, with good lemon, peach, and nice acid that does rise after a bit. The finish is long and floral with good saline, mineral, slate, and good spice. Drink up!

2016 Le Mourre de L’isle, White – Score: 87
The wine is a blend of 40% Roussanne, 30 Viognier, and 30% Grenache Blanc. Lovely nose of peach, and honeysuckle, floral notes, with green apple, and spice. The mouth is slow to open, with peach notes, good acid and balance, with again little complexity but nice acid, with peach, grapefruit, and crazy floral notes. The finish is long with mineral and sweet spices, cinnamon, and cloves. Drink by 2018.

2016 Carmel Riesling – Score – 91
The wine started off very slowly, in a closed state, and it was inaccessible for a day. A lovely nose, but after smelling the German wines, this pales, with nice petrol, honeysuckle, good spices, but very tropical with guava, passion fruit, and pineapple. The mouth is nice, but a far cry from the 2014 vintage, with nice acidity but not near enough, it is ok but it lacks a clear direction, not a sweet wine and not dry enough, with a unidimensional approach with no focus and a short finish with floral notes, slate, and mineral.

After some time – this wine really comes into its own, showing a nose of nice petrol, grapefruit, kiwi, with green apple, and hints of pineapple. The mouth is nicer with time, showing impressive fruit focus, with great searing acid, but still tropical, with passion fruit, green apple, rich mouthfeel, and lovely gripping fruit that is well balanced and tart with lemon Fraiche, rich floral notes, and good spices. The finish is long and spicy, with ripping acid, lovely fruit, earth, incredible mineral, slate, and rock, with floral notes, and mineral galore. Nice! Drink till 2022

2014 Chateau du Grand Barrail, Blaye, Cotes de Bordeaux – Score: 88 (mevushal) (QPR)
Crazy QPR for the price in France of 5 Euro, or so. Nice simple Bordeaux with nice red fruit, followed by green notes, forest floor, with foliage, green notes, and herb. The mouth on this medium bodied wine is nice, not complex with good focus, nice dried raspberry, cranberry, with lovely tannin, nice body, with good acid, good green notes, earth, dirt, and hints of blue notes as well. The finish is long and tart, with good focus, spice, and foliage galore! Nice! Drink by 2023

2016 Le Mourre de L’isle, Red – Score: 82
The wine is a blend of 60% Syrah, 30% Grenache, 10% Mourvedre. The nose is sweet with candied raspberry, very sweet blue notes, prunes, with strawberry, not enjoyable. The mouth does not feel finished, rushed with some control, but overall more like a Beaujolais Nouveau than a wine. may have been a bad bottle.

2016 LI BI Cotes du Rhone, Red – Score: 87
The wine is a blend of 60% Grenache and 40% Syrah. This is a nice wine, with good control, showing nice blue fruit, raspberry, with currant, black notes, and garrigue. The mouth on this wine is well put together, controlled, with good acid, nice fruit focus, with blackberry, nice raspberry, but the star is the deeply tart and acidic blueberry, with great green notes, and overall fruit structure. The finish is long and tart, with lovely mouth coating tannin, and green notes that linger long, with intense coffee, and spices, white pepper, and cloves. Nice! Drink by 2020

2012 Domaine D’Ardhuy, Gevrey Chambertin – Score: 91
A really nice nose with fruity notes that are a bit surprising, but not overly so, with sweet raspberry jam, followed by lovely garrigue, mushroom, wet forest floor, and spice. The mouth on this nice medium bodied wine is beautiful and richly expressive, with clear fruity notes, showing lovely candied raspberry, dark cherry, and hints of black fruit, with great spices, showing nice mushroom, with mouth draping tannin, followed by lovely smoke, toast, and clear fruit focus with lovely spice, and good sweet oak. The finish is long, green, and tart/jammy with red fruit, nice bell pepper, and good sweet spices, cloves, cinnamon, and sweet coffee notes. Drink by 2023

2015 Gamaret de Geneve – Score: 82
The nose is really fruity, pushed hard, very new world, with jammy notes of blueberry, raspberry, dark cherry, and candied fruits galore. The mouth on this full bodied wine is really in your face, with rich and jammy blueberry, blackberry, and dark plum, almost prune that gives way to ripping tannins that have yet to settle and rich toast. For me, this is not a wine I can enjoy, in many ways it reminds me of Tannat – a wine with uncontrollable tannin, ripe fruit, and not much else.

2015 Chateau du Courneau, Margaux – Score: 89
This is the second wine of Chateau Haut Breton Larigaudiere. The blend is made of 70% Cabernet Sauvignon and 30% Merlot. The nose on this wine is really closed with leather, earth, smoke, mushroom, and nice fruit in the far background. The mouth on this medium to full-bodied wine is good, it is well made, but the green notes are a bit too harsh with good raspberry that gives way to nice tannin that is wrapped in more foliage, mineral, and nice fruit focus that is actually nice and improves as it opens, with the green notes that do calm with time. The finish is long and green with good floral, showing nice mineral, graphite, and more earth and mushroom, but the green notes do hinder this wine. Drink from 2019 to 2023

2015 Chateau Haut Breton Larigaudiere, Margaux – Score: 91 to 92
This nose is lovely and best of the night so far with clear refinement, showing rich herb, soft green notes, with lovely red fruit, ripe with good fruit but not overly jammy. The mouth on this wine is lovely, plush, and richly layered with good saline, lovely graphite, impressive mineral, butterscotch, with layers of dark chocolate, rich mouth coating tannin, that gives way to blackberry, juicy and tart raspberry, plum, and nice richness that is balanced with great acid, rich mineral, graphite, and lovely sweet green notes, and tilled soil. The finish is long and earthy with rich green notes sweet dill, earth, and lovely garrigue. A nice wine that is sweeter than I would have wished but very nice still. Drink from 2021 to 2027

2015 Chateau Moulin Bellegrave, Saint Emilion – Score: 90
This nose is as close to an Israeli Cabernet as you will find in Bordeaux, with crazy ripe fruit, ripe blackberry, ripe blueberry, with candied fruit, and hints of green notes. This wine cannot possibly be a Saint Emilion. The mouth on this super ripe and extracted full-bodied wine is nice enough, with a really pushed fruit of blueberry, ripe strawberry, and ripe dark plum, and fruit galore that gives way to deep and richly extracted wine with blackberry galore, garrigue, earth, and intense leather and sweet milk chocolate. The finish is long and dark, and sweet with mouth coating tannin, sweet chocolate, ripe fruit, and good sweet tobacco, and lovely sweet spices, cinnamon, and nutmeg, with sweet vanilla. Drink from 2019 to 2023.

2014 Chateau La Tour Carnet, Haut Medoc – Score: 91 to 92
The nose on this wine is lovely, perfectly balanced, richly expressed and yet nice with good fruit, well balanced with rich mushroom, earth, and rich black fruit expression. The mouth on this full bodied is lovely and nicely extracted with good blackberry, blueberry, and hints of plum, with dark cherry, and ripe raspberry all coming together with good concentration, but with great control, showing beautiful tannin, elegance and rich green notes and acid balancing the nice fruit, with leather, foliage, garrigue, rich sweet herb, and yet green with mint, roasted herb, and lovely bell pepper that is not annoying in anyway at all. The finish is long and green, with rich mouth drying tannin that does not stop, eventually giving way to foliage, red and black fruit, dark chocolate, and lovely herbs that linger long. Bravo!!! Finally a dry yet perfectly balanced Bordeaux. This one is lovely. Drink from 2021 till 2029.

2014 Servitude Volontaire De La Tour Carnet, Haut Medoc – Score: 92 to 93 (tasted separate, posted here for comparison)
The marketing around this wine is horrible, the labels, the bottles, the name, just not normal for the average American. That is understandable, this wine is a bigger brother to the Tour Carnet, and the barrels are all tasted and the higher level barrels are placed in what should have been called reserve or something. This is a horrible name, but hey I am not in marketing, so who cares.
The wine is very akin to the Tour Carnet, but where the Carnet was a bit edgy, the Servitude is more polished. The nose shows a bit more dirt and roasted herb, but otherwise akin. The mouth is more elegant than its but also more extracted, more concentrated and more powerful with more fruit focus that is impressive but also much more black in fruit with more saline and rich black olives. The finish is again dirtier, with more truffle, mushroom, chocolate, incredible mineral, and rich saline.

2014 Chateau Smith Haut Lafite, Pessac – Leognan – Score: 95
This is incredible, insane, far too young to imagine, and a wine that makes me want to just smell it all day, it is a truly perfumed and richly complicated nose, with incredible smoke, richly roasted animal, pure hedonism, and rich black and blue fruit that linger far in the background. The mouth on this full bodied is truly closed, sadly a wine that we have killed for the sake of knowledge, the tannins are beautiful, truly soft and caressing that is based on rich minerality, graphite, espresso, with blackberry, rich dark cherry, raspberry, that is caressing while also being richly tannic, giving way to soft and sweet garrigue, rich graphite, leather, and incredible refinement. The finish is long and green, with rich tannin, lovely tobacco, leather that is soft and saddle, and an extraction that is so incredible as you do not even realize that the extraction is slowly coming expressing itself more and more, in pure elegance, with green notes, foliage, and pure perfection coming through slowly. Bravo!!!!! Drink from 2024 till 2034.

Champagne Bernard Bijotat, Brut – Score: Pass
This wine was bottled 08/08/2016. The wine is a blend of 60% Pinot Meunier, 30% Chardonnay, and 10% Pinot Noir. A slightly oxidized nose of rich brioche with lovely green apple, and nice quince. The mouth is too far oxidized, really a shame, and with the bottling date, I cannot imagine how this occurred. Sorry, the acid is insane, with ripe apples, brioche, and nice yeast, and beautiful small bubble mousse, but not fun.

Champagne Bernard Bijotat, Rose Brut – Score: 88
This wine was bottled 08/08/2016. The wine is also a blend of 60% Pinot Meunier, 30% Chardonnay, and 10% Pinot Noir. The wine is nicer than the other one, with rich toast, ripe fruit, and lovely yeast and brioche. The mouth is slightly oxidized with lovely acid, rich yeast and incredible spice and acid. Nice!

2009 Chateau Bastor LamontagneSauternes – Score: 90
THis nose is richly funky, with rich balanced sugar notes showing honeysuckle, rich guava, and sweetly candied passion fruit, with lovely honeyed notes. sadly there lacks the acid to crush this wine, but the lovely mineral and graphite save its skin, with nice almond pith, and rich sweet notes of candied peach and candied apricot that is sweet and really wish it was cut more by some rich acid. The finish is long and green and bitter with graphite, a finish that is not common to the other Sauterne. Nice! Drink till 2027

2014 Chateau La Tour Blanche Sauternes, 1er Cru classé – Score: 95
This is the fourth 1er classé that has been made kosher. This is a clearly sweet wine with lovely balance though, showing sweet leanings but balanced well with mineral, bright fruit, showing bright dry fruit, lovely funk, showing fresh fruit notes, with honeysuckle, orange blossom, followed by sweet orange marmalade, with incredible sweet notes and fruit focus. The mouth on this full bodied and richly expressive sweet wine is incredibly focused and balanced and sweet, with ripping acidity, that is also balanced with lovely hints graphite with incredible expression, concentration, and impossible complexity that is truly impressive, a wine that never stops with rich grapefruit and citrus in the far background with sweet honeyed notes, candied lemongrass, and rich mineral and slate. The finish is incredible and never ends with honey, spice, nutmeg, and sweet stone fruit. Bravo!!! Drink till 2035

1998 Chateau L’oree de Bel Air, Cerons – Score: 87
This nose and wine are a bit too old for me, with notes of oxidation, rich nuts, almonds, dried flowers, nuts, and salt. The mouth is nice enough but it lacks the acid and is now on its way down. The finish is a bit short with dried fruit, dried apricot, peach, and honeyed notes. The floral notes and funk linger long. Nice enough. Drink UP!

]]>https://kosherwinemusings.com/2017/12/19/a-wine-tasting-of-some-incredible-2014-kosher-french-wines-with-nathan-grandjean/feed/2Wine tasting at Nathan's house in AlsacewinemusingsThe mad dash to Weingut von Hovel in Mosel to enjoy kosher German Rieslings – Gefen Hashalomhttps://kosherwinemusings.com/2017/12/18/the-mad-dash-to-weingut-von-hovel-in-mosel-to-enjoy-kosher-german-rieslings-gefen-hashalom/
https://kosherwinemusings.com/2017/12/18/the-mad-dash-to-weingut-von-hovel-in-mosel-to-enjoy-kosher-german-rieslings-gefen-hashalom/#commentsTue, 19 Dec 2017 00:55:07 +0000http://kosherwinemusings.com/?p=193287When I last left off on the story of my trip to Israel and Europe, I had just ended with the Flam Winery, my last post on the Israeli wineries that I visited that trip. Well, after that Friday, we had the shabbos post, and then another tasting (those tastings were not very successful), after that I made my way to the airport for a trip to France.

When I arrived in France I had the epic tasting of all of the Royal French wines, minus one 2015 Rothschild Haut Medoc. The next day, I get on a train and I head towards Alsace, to meet up with Nathan Grandjean and JK. JK was in Alsace for some wedding, and I was coming originally to have a tasting with Nathan on wines I had missed so far. However, the best part of those horrible tastings in Jerusalem, this one and this one, were the Rieslings. In the first one, the epic Riesling was brought by AS, and the second tasting’s Riesling I brought to the party.

The shocking part of this kosher reimagination of wines in Germany was that the wines were made by top-notch wineries of Mosel. The wineries (Nik Weis and Von Hovel) are world-class wineries in Mosel and for the partnership to have been created with these extraordinary wineries is the true blessing of Gefen Hashalom, IMHO.

Between these three wineries are hundreds of years and multiple generations upon generations of history in winemaking within their own families and that history is evident when you taste the Rieslings – they are expressive and truly unique.

Also, another very fascinating aspect is that both Nik Weis and Von Hovel made kosher wines from the Saar region. Now, Von Hovel’s vineyards are indeed all in the Saar region, but Nik Weis has regions in Mosel as well, but so far the three vintages we have had (2014, 2015, and 2016) they have all been sourced from Saar, even the new 2016 vintage that used a more expensive vineyard, Ockfener Bockstein, was still from the Saar wine region.

The Saar region, which as I will explain below is freezing cold, and for the wines to attain their fruit and acidity requires nerves of steel, deep prayer, and sheer endless hope. The prayers are normally rewarded with wines that are extremely low in alcohol and high in acidity but are picked as late as November at times, if that is possible, or sometimes it never reaches peak ripeness.

Traveling to Mosel

Well, when I tasted that epic 2014 Von Hovel Riesling – it was an eye-opener! At that second tasting in Jerusalem on Sunday, I was telling the guys that I would be seeing Nathan in a few days. All they wanted to know was why the heck was I not going to Mosel!! I said, well, I have no way to get there. They said rent a car in Alsace and go! I said I have a better idea, I will get Nathan to drive me! Well, that was my idea anyway, Nathan had entirely different plans for that day! However, what sealed the deal, other than his wife begrudgingly agreeing to this mad dash across the border, was the fact that there was indeed more of the 2014 Von Hovel wines! This fact was the best thing I had heard in weeks. For the longest time, we were all told that the kosher Von Hovel wines were all sold out! When I called twice, to check again and to make reservations for our visit, they assured me that they had some of the kosher wines left and that Max von Kunow would make time for us to visit, even though they too were in the middle of harvest.

So, because AS and AD pushed me to go to Mosel, I had what I needed to convince Nathan to drive me to Mosel. Throughout the entire drive to Mosel, all Nathan did was complain! What are you doing to me? Why can we not just get the wines shipped and not make me drive three hours to Mosel? The funny thing was that Mosel was closer to where I started than Alsace. On top of that, it was pouring, like cats and dogs, I mean just torrents of rain – incredible! However, by the time we arrived at the area, the rain stopped, the clouds cleared up and then we could understand all that is Mosel. Crazy hills, majestic hillsides that sour above the Saar in ways that make Alsace look like child’s play. The trip was worth Nathan beating on me (and maybe even rightfully so) because we both had the rare opportunity to sit with one of the founders of Gefen Hashalom, Max von Kunow – and to taste the wines that were until then almost impossible to buy and appreciate.

Still, more than the visit which was wonderful, there was Mosel, the place is crazy. The hillsides remind me of photos of Porto and the hills we drove up in Priorat with Moises. The entire hillsides lined with row after row of vineyards growing Riesling for the vast majority.

Mosel is one of those places that defies words, the images are insane, the history is timeless, and as you enter it all you feel is a fusion of the past mixed with a large dollop of respect for the people who work these environments. Forget the formidable slopped hills that hug Mosel, Saar, and Ruwer, those are crazy enough. Throw in the absolutely unpredictable climate that changes every 300 feet, talk about micro-climates, and you cannot come to Mosel and not be in awe.

Mosel is a river that starts in France and serpentines its way through Germany with two river tributaries – Saar and Ruwer. Throughout the path that the river cuts, there are hillsides that hug it like a bear as they rise on an incredible slope up and towards the sky. The region has multiple microclimates, many of which we saw in real life on this trip, but also there are six districts (Bereiche), four of the six districts are situated on the river Mosel, and one each on rivers Saar and Ruwer.

Saar is one of the coldest regions within Mosel, and it was really cold when we arrived in mid-September. Most are afraid of rot with rain that Germany sees, but in Saar that is not a problem, as mold requires some heat, and in this region that is a quality that is in dear need. The most ideal vintages allow harvest to take place between late October and mid-November when the grapes can develop enough sugar to produce floral and honeyed notes (from Wikipedia).

The wines are low in alcohol, fruity, but balanced well with great acidity, and floral notes to start. With age, the glorious petrol that we all love from Riesling appears.

The Saar originates in the Vosges mountains, which separate Germany from Alsace. The soils are less uniform and stonier than those downriver, and they retain less heat. Additionally, the Saar and her tributaries are smaller bodies of water than the Mosel, which limits their ability to serve as a moderating factor on the region’s microclimate (AKA COLD!). As a result of these factors, Rieslings from the Saar often struggle to ripen and have a reputation for being harvested even later than on the Middle and Upper Mosel.

Remember that there is a classic tension between wanting heat in the summer and disliking it at the same time! The hotter a region is the faster the fruit hits maturity before the fruit can build its needed acidity to balance the overall fruit makeup. By contrast, a very slow ripening area will cause the opposite, in that the fruit will never reach its maturation and the fruit will have nice acidity, but no fruit flavors that you desire so much, and the phenolics will also be missing. The perfect situation is when you can leave the fruit on the vines for a long time, allowing the fruit to naturally and SLOWLY acquire its fruit flavors, phenolics, while not giving up its acidity.

Mr. von Kunow took over production from his father, Eberhard von Kunow, in 2010, and the direction of the estate has changed with Max’s ideas. He is the 7th generation winemaker in the family, dating back to the 1800s. His father made sweet Rieslings, and while Mr. von Kunow makes those, he really likes dry Rieslings, and he is moving the winery in that direction. He is also moving towards organic vineyards, longer macerations, tighter control of the cooperages, longer fermentation, wild yeasts, but really it is all about the old begets new. In Germany, you are allowed to add sugars (chaptalization), but max is against that. Which means that to get the proper sugars and fruit, he needs to wait longer for the fruit to come to him. He wants the wines to be fruity, but fruity in Mosel means wines that have the correct sweetness to balance the incredible acidity that comes with his fruit. The longer seasons give max the massive acidity, what he really wants is for the fruit to ripe as well to get a perfect balance, while keeping the alcohol low.

Weingut Von Hovel

When the clouds parted, we arrived at the winery and it was time to taste these wines in their proper place – a winery surrounded by the very vines and hills that sourced them. The Von Hovel winery has been in place since 1803 when they purchased Maximinerhof in Oberemmel and renamed it Weingut Grach after Napoleon secularized the vineyards of the Saar and Mosel from the churches and monasteries. Max’s great-great-grandfather bought it then and moved it into the building they are in now. The building was completed in the 12th century, where it initially served as an abbey retreat for the famous wine monastery of St. Maximin in Trier.

We arrived at the back entrance and we walked through to meet Max von Kunow. He was very kind to sit with us for an hour, even though he was right in the middle of harvest season. He was also very kind to share with us the famous 2014 kosher wines and his (at that time – yet unreleased) 2015 kosher Riesling as well.

The Von Hovel wines are IMHO the best of the Gefen Hashalom Rieslings, so far. Others disagree, which is 100% fine with me. The Von Hovel Rieslings are insane, deep, rich, incredible, with complexity that lasts forever. They are also double to triple the price of the Nik Weis wines. Price aside the wines are better, but given the higher prices they could not really be a QPR wine, but wow they are incredible. I had previously tasted the 2014 Von Hovel Hutte Oberemmel Riesling, just a few days before being in Germany, with the gang in Jerusalem. Here the wines showed better, and we continued tasting them all night and the next day as well at Nathan house, as Max let us take them home.

Weingut von Hövel Label (and Mosel wines overall) understood

If you look at the labels on the wine, other than the varietal, and the vineyards which are clearly and proudly stated on the label the rest of the label is really foreign to most kosher wine drinkers. So, I thought I would write a quick primer on Mosel and Germany’s wine label information. Before we dive into this – please note – Germany’s wine classification is NOT wrapped around the subjective quality of the wine as it is in France, Italy, Spain, and so on. Rather, it defines quality by ripeness. Now before you say what? Understand that Germany is a cold place to live and their priority when making their wine classification in 1971, was to make sure the buyer knew the wine’s weight (AKA sugar content) before buying. An underripe wine is really not fun, especially from Germany. Finally, I used two sources for this information – Tim Gaiser’s great work and Wikipedia of course.

On the front of the label, you will find some basic information, on this label in particular – you get the Gefen Hashalom name, the name of the vineyard, in this case, the famous Scharzhofberg vineyard. Next, you will see the varietal, which is Riesling for all of Von Hovel’s wines. Finally, you will see the first German specific word – Kabinett. Of course, you also see Von Hovel – the name of the winery, which is slightly off to the side, only because there are “two” wineries here, Von Hovel and Gefen Hashalom.

Kabinett: The minimum requirements, under current wine law, for a wine to be labeled Kabinett are as follows:

The wine must have a must density of between 67 to 82 degrees Oechsle, depending on the region.

On the back of the label, things get very unique and very interesting quickly. First, you will see an Eagle on the top right side of the label – that is the VDP logo.

VDP: The logo of the Association of German Prädikat Wine Estates (Verband Deutscher Prädikats- und Qualitätsweingüter, or more commonly VDP) which is awarded to the top 200 producers, as voted among themselves. The logo is a black eagle with a cluster of grapes in the center. The winery in the image example has the VDP logo. While not a guarantee, the presence of the VDP logo is a helpful insight into the quality of the wine.

PLEASE NOTE! VDP is NOT a German government-controlled wine classification. VDP was founded in 1910, Verband Deutscher Prädikatsweingüter, an association of Germany’s best producers. Think of it akin to Napa Vintner’s or any other wine region associations “owned” by the wineries and used to promote what they think is correct and special about their region.

VDP’s logo is a German Eagle with a bunch of grapes in its mouth and is shown proudly on labels and wine bottle capsules. Remember they were an association for 61 years before Germany made their attempt and classifying German wines. The VDP does NOT have government protection and it also does not have its control either. So, if you are part of the VDP association, there is very little, as of now, that can be done to protect members from using classifications that are not officially part of their wines.
With the creation of the German wine classification in 1971 all people got was an idea of how ripe/sweet the grapes were upon harvest – not much else. So as German wines slowly lost their syrupy and cloyingly sweet reputation, there was a need to promote from within what was actually quality and not just ripe.

Grosse Lage should not be confused with other VDP regions classifications, but for Mosel, it means top dog. Specifically, it means:

GRAPE VARIETIESTraditional varieties that are best suited to a particular site or parcel, as prescribed by each region. For additional details, please see the regional list of permissible grape varieties at the end of this section.*

MAXIMUM YIELDSReduced yields of 50/hl/ha**

HARVEST METHOD AND RIPENESS LEVELGrapes are harvested selectively, by hand. The harvested fruit must be physiologically fully ripe.

VINIFICATIONThe wines are produced exclusively by traditional winemaking techniques.

Again, the quality here is just the fruit’s weight, meaning ripeness or sugar content, not subjective quality. Within the Prädikatswein, there are a few other classifications – defining the weight and the style of the wine – which are VERY important to those buying wine blindly. Pulled from Wikipedia again:

The different Prädikat (superior quality wine) designations used are as followed, in order of increasing sugar levels in the must:

Kabinett – literally “cabinet”, meaning wine of reserve quality to be kept in the vintner’s cabinet

fully ripened light wines from the main harvest, typically semi-sweet with crisp acidity, but can be dry if designated so.

typically half-dry, often (but not always) sweeter and fruitier than Kabinett. The grapes are picked at least 7 days after normal harvest, so they are riper. While waiting to pick the grapes carries a risk of the crop being ruined by rain, in warm years and from good sites much of the harvest can reach Spätlese level. Spätlese can be a relatively full-bodied dry wine if designated so. While Spätlese means late harvest the wine is not as sweet as a dessert wine, as the “late harvest” term is often used in US wines.

made from very ripe, hand selected bunches, typically semi-sweet or sweet, sometimes with some noble rot character. Sometimes Auslese is also made into a powerful dry wine, but the designation Auslese trocken has been discouraged after the introduction of Grosses Gewächs. Auslese is the Prädikat which covers the widest range of wine styles, and can be a dessert wine.

made from grapes that have been naturally frozen on the vine, making a very concentrated wine. Must reach at least the same level of sugar content in the must as a Beerenauslese. The most classic Eiswein style is to use only grapes that are not affected by noble rot. Until the 1980s, the Eiswein designation was used in conjunction with another Prädikat (which indicated the ripeness level of the grapes before they had frozen), but is now considered a Prädikat of its own.

made from selected overripe shrivelled grapes often affected by noble rot making extremely rich sweet wines. “Trocken” in this phrase refers to the grapes being dried on the vine rather than the resulting wine being a dry style.

Finally, you will find the VDP Grosse Lage again – which was described above and you get the very important information – alcohol level.

Alcohol Level in Mosel wines: Please understand that the driest Riesling from Germany would have a higher alcohol level than a wine with residual sugar, with all things being equal. Why? Because alcohol is a byproduct of sugar fermentation. So, if the sugar does not ferment and is left as residual sugar than the alcohol level is lower. Again, this comparison ONLY makes sense when looking at a single wine that was fermented to different alcohol levels.

We have had now a few Rieslings from Germany thanks to the Gefen Hashalom guys, Von Hovel, and Nik Weis. The 2014 Nik Weis was pretty dry and then it was not actually dry, it had residual sugar. The difference is the acid, it can be so incredible with these Mosel wines that it makes the wine feel dry when it is actually not – from a chemical perspective anyway.

If you are interested in these wines, they are not wines that will be coming to the states. If you want them, email Nathan Grandjean about how to get them: Contact@yavine.fr (I DO NOT work for wine stores, never have and never will. I get no kickback or payment for this). I state this here only as information.

2015 Von Hovel Saar Riesling Kabinett – Score: 93
Interestingly, the label reads Mosel, but it is really the Saar subregion of Mosel. Kabinett originally meant reserve wine, now it means light, fruity, that by law (if you use the word Kabinett) does not have chaptalization. The wine must also have a must density of between 67 to 82 degrees Oechsle, (148–188 g/L sugar). Kabinett wines range in style from dry to off-dry.
This wine shows a crazy nose of honeysuckle, rich yellow plum, with crazy petrol and intense grapefruit with intense kiwi and mineral, and lovely honeyed notes. The mouth on this medium bodied wine which is less complex than previous wines but really nice still with great acid, intense mineral, petrol, crazy pineapple, showing guava with layers of green apple and rich expression and nice rich fruit, that is backed by incredible acid, fruit pith, with spice, backed by a rich mouthfeel, and lovely tropical notes, and nice mushroom and cinnamon peppery spices. Drink from 2020 to 2032.

2014 Von Hovel Riesling, Hutte Oberemmel, Kabinett – Score: 94
The Scharzhofberg vineyard may be world-famous, but the Hutte Oberemmel is no slouch, it too has wide sweeping temperatures between day and night, and it is a monopoly (owned solely by) of the estate.Interestingly, the label reads Mosel, but it is really the Saar subregion of Mosel. Kabinett originally meant reserve wine, now it means light, fruity, that by law (if you use the word Kabinett) does not have chaptalization. The wine must also have a must density of between 67 to 82 degrees Oechsle, (148–188 g/L sugar). Kabinett wines range in style from dry to off-dry.
A wonderful Riesling wine, great funk, with rich petrol, honeysuckle monster, with great spice, dried flowers, heather, lavender, with yellow apple, and yellow plum. The mouth is rich and layered and rich acidity that is insane, with layers of rich blossom honey, and layers of never-ending oily texture that is dripping with acid and white peach, dried pineapple, lovely funk that gives way to minerality, wonderful control with nice oxidation, and intense lovely saline. The finish is crazy long, sweet, and yet incredibly balanced, with the sweet notes but impeccably balanced, with dripping honey, candied guava, minerality that is bracing, slate, rock, and incredible tart citrus, grapefruit, and tart lime. Bravo!!! Drink from now till 2028.

2014 Von Hovel Riesling, Scharzhofberg, Kabinett – Score: 95
Scharzhofberg needs little introduction. It’s one of the most famous vineyards in the Saar with incredibly steep slopes of slate, and a microclimate that has one of the largest diurnal temperature swings in all of Germany. Interestingly, the label reads Mosel, but it is really the Saar subregion of Mosel. Kabinett originally meant reserve wine, now it means light, fruity, that by law (if you use the word Kabinett) does not have chaptalization. The wine must also have a must density of between 67 to 82 degrees Oechsle, (148–188 g/L sugar). Kabinett wines range in style from dry to off-dry.
The wine starts off with lovely notes of tropical fruit, petrol heaven with a light hand, showing incredible elegance and style, slightly oxidized with incredible rich pineapple, hints of mango, and sweet notes. The mouthfeel is incredible with rich layers of rich sweet fruit, showing a guava infused oily texture that is wrapped in rich acidity and perfectly balanced with rich spices and incredibly sweet notes of peach, sweet apricot, with acid that gives way to rich candied grapefruit, candied lemon drop, candied green apple and rich mineral and saline. The finish is long and super spicy with rich mineral, slate, incredible candied fruit that is rich and never-ending with sweet honeyed notes, and sweet spices. AWESOME!! Drink from 2020 till 2035.

]]>https://kosherwinemusings.com/2017/12/18/the-mad-dash-to-weingut-von-hovel-in-mosel-to-enjoy-kosher-german-rieslings-gefen-hashalom/feed/2Hills of Mosel 2winemusingsMax von Kunow - Weingut von Hovelcsm_2016_Klassifikationspyramide_alle_Stufen_warmgrey_by_VDP_ff879df51a.pngThe 2017-2018 kosher wine tasting event season is upon us!https://kosherwinemusings.com/2017/11/30/the-2017-2018-kosher-wine-tasting-event-season-is-upon-us/
https://kosherwinemusings.com/2017/11/30/the-2017-2018-kosher-wine-tasting-event-season-is-upon-us/#commentsThu, 30 Nov 2017 16:25:06 +0000http://kosherwinemusings.com/?p=193248When most people think of seasons – they think of either the 4 environmental seasons, or the holiday seasons (Jewish or otherwise), and then there are the more obscure – seasons, like the kosher wine tasting season. Yes, it is a once a year season and it starts in December and goes through late March. The exact dates are not set, as they depend on the Jewish Lunar calendar with the start of Passover. Yup! Passover drives the entire kosher wine tasting season – and that makes sense since 40 to 50% of ALL kosher wine sold, happens in the month around and before Passover! That is totally crazy!

So, with that in mind let the festivities begin! The first tasting that kicks off the season happens in Miami, and it has finally been “officially” added to the KFWE calendar. The KFWE family has officially expanded and subsumed what was already really KFWE events (including Israel and Miami) and now just made it official.

As I have pounded on and on in these virtual pages, we need more wine education and the wine education leader, IMHO, is also the kosher wine 800-pound guerilla, Royal Wines. Recently I did a quick check in my mind of the top kosher wineries or kosher wine runs from around the world, and Royal probably imports about 80+% of them. Sure, there are hundreds of wineries they do not import, but they are also not wines that I particularly buy and covet. It is just a very interesting fact IMHO, somewhat scary but also very telling. Here is a wine distributor and importer that gets what sells and what does not, and has successfully found the better options out there and keeps adding more.

Cross distributor tastings

Besides the Royal wine events – AKA KFWE, there are events in Israel, namely Sommelier, the only wine event in Israel publicizing Israel’s diverse wine culture. That happens every year in and around the month of January, as stated earlier exact dates for any of these events is only locked down a few months in advance and the date changes every year.

Israel wines may be going off the deep end, in terms of date juice and all, but Sommelier continues to do a wonderful job of keeping a continuous focus on Israel and its potential in the wine world. Bravo to them!

There is also the Bokobsa event in Paris, which I went to this past year, which is NOT officially part of the KFWE family, but Royal wines is represented there as are other wineries that Bokobsa imports into France.

Royal wine imports many Bokobsa wines into the USA, but Bokobsa itself makes kosher wines (like the fantastic 2007 and 2012 Sancerre Chavignol, though I wish they made a new one already), and imports wines into France as well. The whole kosher wine import game is what drives these events. These are importers/winemakers that need to sell product and they need to advertise what they are selling, so these events are a win-win for us all!

Besides, Sommelier, there are a couple of wine events that happen closer to Passover that is not about a single importer but rather about kosher wine options overall. These events are not as deep as the Royal or Bokobsa wine events, which will showcase almost every single wine these importers make/import. Rather, it is a curated and diverse set of wines that span across multiple importers and distributors. So, Yarden, Rashbi, and others are at these events and it gives the chance to taste other wines outside of the deep vertical shows like KFWE.

One of them is The Grapevine Wines & Spirits Kosher Grand Tasting, it is a very nice event that normally in the middle of the kosher wine tasting event season, they will be hosting their 6th event in 2018. The last event of the season is always the biggest of this style, the Jewish Week Grand Wine Tasting, they are in their 9th year (this coming 2018).

Another event that sadly has stopped was the Kosher Wine Society’s wine tasting which was also one of those cross distributor wine tasting event, but that has gone away with the KWS founder, Aaron Ritter, getting married and I guess being too busy to pull it off any longer. As much as I may miss the event, I am super happy for him and his family!

Wine events happening all the time

So there you have a quick history of the wine events that are coming up. There are also a few one-off events going on in NYC (nothing happens in LA or Norcal other than KFWE), like the upcoming Shirah event on December 3rd and the 2017 Long ISLAND kosher Wine EXPO that just completed on November 7th. Keep an eye open for them!

Name: KFWE LondonWhen: January 31st, 2018Time: 3:30 PN for trade and 6:30 PM for publicWhere: Sheraton Grand London Park Lane
Piccadilly, London W1J 7BX, United KingdomLink to signup or for more information: http://thekfwe.com/ (choose London – then buy ticket)